Protest and Resistance in Angola and Brazil: Comparative Studies [Reprint 2019 ed.] 9780520325869

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Protest and Resistance in Angola and Brazil Published Under the Auspices of the African Studies Center and the Latin American Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles

Protest and Resistance in Angola and Brazil Comparative Studies Edited by Ronald H. Chilcote

University of California Press Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 1972

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England

Copyright © 1972 by The Regents of the University of California ISBN: 0-520-01878-8 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-142054 Printed in the United States of America

In memory of Eduardo Mondlane and Fernando Monteiro de Castro Soromenho

Preface There have been few scholarly comparisons of geographical areas of the Third World. As a contribution to such comparative study, the project from which the present volume evolved attemped to examine links between Brazil and Portuguese Africa. The objectives were to overlap the traditional area boundaries that separate specialists of Latin America and Africa, to focus on common themes from the perspective of varying social science disciplines, and to reassess and evaluate a variety of cases of protest and resistance. The specialized essays were to be analytical and exploratory, raising questions for possible future research. The essays in this collection are substantially revised from the original form in which they were presented over an eight-week period from January to March 1968 to seminars of faculty and students at the Los Angeles and Riverside campuses of the University of California. The papers were distributed in advance to the seminars, and the intent was to include at least one African and one Brazilian paper at each session to provoke dialogue, debate, and discussion among Africanists and Latin Americanists alike. Of the original twenty-four contributors, ten were from the United States, seven from Brazil, three from Portugal, two from Mozambique, and one each from England and France. They represented the following disciplines: history (six contributors), political science (six), sociology (five), anthropology (four), anthropology-psychiatry (one), history-geography (one), and education (one). Ten contributors were Brazilianists, nine were Africanists, and five had undertaken research and study in both areas.* My introduction describes the conceptualization that unifies the diverse essays. A conclusion attempts to synthesize a multitude of examples drawn from the historical experience of Brazil and Portuguese Africa. A classification is offered, and extensive reference to the literature is attempted in order to provide the reader with leads to some of the major primary and secon* A full report of the colloquium is in Ronald H. Chilcote, "Brazil and Portuguese Africa in Comparative Perspective," Latin American Research Review, IV (Winter 1969), 125—136.

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dary source material. The body of this volume consists of individual essays representing varying views and perspectives focused on Angola and Brazil. The brief abstract preceding each essay attempts to synthesize content and ideas, as well as to tie the collection into an integrated and balanced whole. The rigorous criticism and dialogue of the colloquium contributed substantially to clarification and improvement of each essay. Nevertheless, some imbalance in scholarship and writing is inevitable. Further, these essays do not in any way signify consensus on the subject matter presented, and each author is solely responsible for his own essay. Acknowledgment is due to many institutions and individuals for their contributions and assistance. I am grateful to the African Sudies Center and the Latin American Center of the Los Angeles campus, and the Latin American Research Program of the Riverside campus of the University of California who jointly sponsored the colloquium and provided the bulk of the research funds; additionally, I wish to thank the UCLA Chancellor's Committee on International and Comparative Studies and the UCR Department of Political Science for financial support. Professors Leo Ku'per and Paul Proehl, respecively director and former director of the African Studies Center, and Professor Johannes Wilbert, director of the Latin American Center, were all instrumental in shaping the project. Among the many individuals who contributed, I am deeply grateful to Castro Soromenho, Gladwyn Childs, Helio Jaguaribe, Robert Levine, John Marcum, Cándido Mendes de Almeida, Eduardo Mondlane, Adriano Moreira, Alberto Guerreiro Ramos, A. da Silva Régo, Nelson Werneck de Sodré, and William Zartman for their essays which were not included herein. Most of their essays are being published elsewhere. Also I wish to thank Professors Carlos Cortés, Alan Green, Ludwig Lauerhass, Martin Orans, and Gunnar P. Nielsson of the University of California, Riverside; Professors Rupert Emerson, Peter Nehemkis, Edward González, Kenneth Karst, and Charles R. Nixon of the University of California, Los Angeles; Professors Russell Chase and Francis Dutra of the University of California, Santa Barbara; Professors Timothy Harding and Donald Bray of California State College, Los Angeles; Professor Roger Cuniff of San Diego State College; and Professor Richard Kornweible of California State College, Sacramento, for their critical assessment of papers presented at the colloquium. Among the many graduate students who significantly evaluated the papers, I thank Bolivar Lamounier, Joel Edelstein, Aram Sogomoniun, Nancy Garson, Brian Nelson, Richard Stevens, Harry Meader, and George Zaharopoulos. I am especially grateful to several researchers associated with the Latin American Research Program, Riverside: Amaury de Souza for ideas that helped in formulation of the colloquium; William Culver for critical comments and assistance on planning; Caesar Sereseres for assistance on the pre-

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face and introductions to the essays and Paul Mason for editing and proofreading the manuscript. Additionally, the colloquium would not have been so efficiently organized without the careful planning of Hildaliza Arias Walkeapaa. Sarah Myers of the University of Chicago made substantial revisions and copy edited the essays into final draft form; her efforts have given balance and integration to the collection. I wish to thank also Diane Radke and Jessie Scott for typing the final draft. On the Los Angeles campus I would like to thank Pat Lunquist and Virginia Coulon of the African Studies Center who respectively typed and translated many of the essays, and Ana Bartos and Sandra Diaz of the Latin American Center for translating and typing other essays. Thanks are due also to Marcus Leh who meticulously prepared the index that accompanies this volume. Finally, I am especially grateful for the constructive criticism and useful suggestions of Professor Edward A. Alpers of the University of California, Los Angeles, who patiently examined the entire manuscript and contributed substantially to its present narrowed focus, cohesiveness, and balance. Ronald H. Chilcote Universiy of California, Riverside

Contributors MANUEL CORRELA DE OLIVEIRA ANDRADE, born in 1922 in Nazaré, Pernambuco in Brazil, has a Ph.D. in economics and holds professorial positions in geography at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco and the Universidade Católica de Pernambuco. Among his numerous publications on Brazil are A terra e o homem no nordeste (Rio de Janeiro, 1963); A guerra dos Cabanos (Rio de Janeiro, 1965); Espaço, polarizaçâo e desenvolvimento (Recife, 1967); and A economia pernambucana no século XVI (Recife, 1962).

born in Nimes, France, in 1898, is Professeur de Ethnologie Sociale et Religieuse, Faculté des Lettres et Science Humaines, Sorbonne and Directeur d'Etudes de Psychiatrie Sociale, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris. He was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Sâo Paulo. A long-time student of African influences in Brazil, Professor Bastide has published many books and scholarly articles, including Brésil, terre des contrastes (Paris, 1957); Le Candomblé de Bahia (The Hague, 1958); Sociologia do folclore brasileiro (Sâo Paulo, 1959); and with Florestân Fernandes, Brancos e Negros em Säo Paulo (Sao Paulo, 1959). His most recent work, published in 1967, is Les Amériques Noires. ROGER BASTIDE,

born in England in 1938, is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Dar es Salaam. He was Visiting Associate Professor of History in 1968 at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has written The Portuguese Conquest of Angola (London, 1965), and Trade and Conflict in Angola: The Mbundu and their Neighbours under the Influence of the Portuguese 1483-1190 (Oxford, 1966) and has edited (with Richard Gray), Pre-Colonial African Trade (London, 1970). DAVID BIRMINGHAM,

born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1935 is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Riverside. His research on Brazil and Portuguese Africa has been supported by post-doctoral grants from the Social Science Research Council, the Organization of American RONALD H. CHILCOTE,

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States, and the Haynes Foundation. His publications include Portuguese Africa (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1967), Emerging Portuguese African Nationalism, 2 vols (Stanford, 1969 and 1972), and Party Conflict and Consensus: The Brazilian Communist Party, 1922-1910 (forthcoming Oxford University Press). He has published articles dealing with comparative aspects of Brazil and Portuguese Africa in Comparative Political Studies and Latin American Research Review. His present work is concerned with power structure in relation to underdevelopment and dependency in two backland communities of Northeast Brazil. RALPH DELLA CAVA, born in 1934, is a native of New York City. He has taught history at Columbia College and presently is an Assistant Professor of history at Queens College, City University of New York. He has held a National Defense Foreign Language Award and a Foreign Area Fellowship to do field research in Brazil. He published "The Northeast," in Robert Levine's Brazil: Field Research Guide (New York, 1966) and Miracle at Joaseiro (New York, 1970).

born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1938, is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. He has held a Fulbright Study Grant, a National Defense Foreign Language Award, a Fulbright-Hays Research Grant, and a National Institute of Mental Health Pre-Doctoral Award and in 1969-70 was a Social Science Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Sussex. He has published articles in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Journal of Economic History, Journal of Latin American Studies, among others. His book The Raft Fishermen: Tradition and Change in the Brazilian Peasant Economy was published by Indiana University Press in 1970. His recent work has focused on the marketing system and peasant economy of Northeast Brazil, and he is writing a book on the peasantry in Northeast Brazil, to be published by Columbia University Press. SHEPARD FORMAN,

MARVIN HARRIS, born in 1927, is a native of New York City. He is Professor of Anthropology and former Chairman (1962-1966) of the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University. He has held Ford Foundation, African Studies Program, and Social Science Research Council post-doctoral fellowships. His research has focused on race relations in Bahia (early 1950s and 1962) and in Mozambique (1956-1957). His research in Latin America also includes a study of highland Ecuador during 1960. His extensive publications include Town and Country in Brazil (New York, 1956); Patterns of Race in the Americas (New York, 1964); The Nature of Cultural Things (New York, 1964); The Rise of Anthropological Theory (New York, 1968); and his most recent work, Culture, Man and Nature (1971).

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a native of Vinhais, Portugal, is Assistant de Recherches in the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris. His awards include the poetry and essay prizes of the Sociedade Cultural de Angola and a grant from the Fundaçâo Calouste Gulbenkian (1964-1967). He is the author of Introduction à l'histoire Lunda (a thesis for the E P H E ) ; collaborated, under the direction of Marc Ferro, in compiling the Dictionnaire d'Histoire (Paris, 1971); of articles on anthropology, history, sociology of literature in L'Afrique Littéraire et Artistique, Annales, Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, Diogène, L'Homme et la Société, Le Mois en Afrique, Revue d'Esthétique, Revue Française des Affaires Politiques Africaines, Rivista Storica Italiana, etc. He was also editor of the literary supplement of Diario ¡Ilustrado, and literary editor for Guimaráes Editores. His present research is focused on "Political and Economic Structures of the Lunda Empire." ALFREDO MARGARIDO,

born in Recife, Brazil in 1914, is Professor of Brazilian Ethnography at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, as well as Medical Director of the Sanatorio Recife. He received his M.D. from the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, and his M.A. in anthropology from Northwestern University. Among his published works are Cultos afrobrasileiros do Recife: um estudo de adjustamento social (Recife, 1952); "Brazilian messianic movements," in Syvia L. Thrupp, ed., Milletmial Dreams in Action (The Hague, 1962); and "Análisis socio-psicológico de la posesión en los cultos afro-brasileños," in Acta Neuropsiquiátrica Argentina (1959). RENÉ RiBEiRo,

born in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1939, was researcher at the Center for African Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. He has held an Afro-Anglo-American Fellowship, as well as a fellowship from Columbia's Institute for International Studies. He was Senior StafF Member at Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies and currently is with the U.S. Department of State. His research has examined education within the Portuguese territory of Angola where he undertook field research in 1967; his publications include "Methodist Education in Angola, 1897-1915," in Stúdia ( 1967); "The N e w Look in Angolan Education," in Africa Report (November, 1967); Portuguese Africa: A Handbook (New York, 1969) and Education in Angola, 1818-19H (New York, 1970). MICHAEL A. SAMUELS,

souzA was born in Uberlândia, Brazil, in 1942. H e holds degrees in sociology, political science, and public administration from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gérais. His most recent positions in Brazil have been Associate Professor of Sociology at the Escola de Sociología da Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro and, concurrently, Research Associate, Instituto Universitario de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro. In 1966 he edited Sociología política. A.MAURY GUIMARÁES DE

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DOUGLAS LANPHIER WHEELER, born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1937, is Associate Professor of History and Chairman of the History Department, University of New Hampshire. He has been a recipient of a National Defense Education Act Fellowship in African Studies, a Fulbright Grant for study at the University of Lisbon, a Fulbright-Hays Research grant, and in 1966 a grant from the University of New Hampshire for research in Angola. While in Africa he was a temporary Lecturer at the University College of Rhodesia, Salisbury. He has published articles about Portugal and Portuguese Africa in the Journal of African History, Race, Foreign Affairs, and other journals, and has contributed an essay, "The Portuguese and Mozambique," in John Davis, ed., Southern Africa in Transition (New York, 1966). With René Pelissier, he wrote Angola (New York, 1971).

Contents Introduction

Ronald H. Chilcote

1

Part I. Protest and Resistance in Angola and Brazil Angola 1. The African Response to Early Portuguese Activities in Angola David Birmingham

11

2. The Tokoist Church and Portuguese Colonialism in Angola Alfredo Margarido

29

3. A Failure of Hope: Education and Changing Opportunities in Angola under the Portuguese Republic Michael A. Samuels

53

4. Origins of African Nationalism in Angola: Assimilado Protest Writings, 1859-1929 Douglas L. Wheeler

67

Brazil 5. The Social and Ethnic Significance of the War of the Cabanos Manuel Correia de Andrade

91

6. The Cangapo and the Politics of Violence in Northeast Brazil Amaury de Souza

109

7. The Entry of Padre Cicero into Partisan Politics, 19071909: Some Complexities of Brazilian Backland Politics under the Old Republic Ralph della Cava

133

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Contents 8. T h e Millennium that Never Came: T h e Story of a Brazilian Prophet RenéRibeiro

157

9. Disunity and Discontent: A Study of Peasant Political Movements in Brazil Shepard Forman

18 3

Part II. A Comparative Overview 10. Portugal's Contribution to the Underdevelopment of Africa and Brazil Marvin Harris

209

11. Lusotropicology, Race, and Nationalism, and Class Protest and Development in Brazil and Portuguese Africa Roger Bastide

225

Part III. Conclusion 12. Protest and Resistance in Brazil and Portuguese Africa: A Synthesis and a Classification Ronald H. Chilcote Index

243 305

Introduction Ronald H. Chilcote An understanding of social and political cleavages and resultant conflict and opposition in Brazil and Africa and knowledge of the historical experience of those areas immediately makes evident a pattern of protest and resistance among a variety of social and political movements. For an overview of these movements it is necessary first to identify a typology, then to analyze in depth. 1 Eric Hobsbawm has identified a variety of cases of primitive or archaic forms of social agitation in Europe, including social banditry of the Robin Hood type; the rural secret society (such as the Mafia); various peasant revolutionary movements of the millenarian sort; preindustrial "mobs" and their riots; and labor religious sects and the use of ritual in early labor and revolutionary organizations.2 Hobsbawm's classification and, more important, his analysis of specific cases in large measure inspired my attempt to develop a classification for Brazil (especially the Northeast) and Portuguese Africa (especially Angola), although the territories in the latter are less known, and historical cases of crisis and the movements that contributed to those crises are less studied, owing to the dominant colonial presence of the Portuguese for the past five centuries. Therefore, my classification of protest and resistance movements in Brazil and Portuguese Africa (see chapter 12) is an attempt to provide a general framework for the cases included in the present volume and to spur scholars to study more carefully the muchoverlooked historical details that constitute the heritage of African peoples in the Portuguese territories. It is clear that individually our studies deal with small segments of total population in the areas under investigation and that they rarely concern or have any particular impact on national politics. When synthesized into a whole, however, trends and patterns become discernible, and these are significant in comprehending past as well as current developments. 1

See chapter 12 for an elaboration of such a typology or classification. Eric J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movements in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Manchester, England: University of Manchester Press, 19J9). 2

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Introduction

A comparative examination of the impact of protest and resistance on social and political change in Brazil and Portuguese Africa necessitates the clarification of these concepts through definition and the elaboration of generalizations. While these concepts are interrelated, they also have many distinguishing characteristics. Protest may be manifested as a complaint, objection, disapproval, or display of unwillingness to an idea, course of action, or social condition. Protest, it may be argued, stems from an active desire for change, while the process of developmental change frequently originates from the impact of protest. Protest relates to the forces that cause man to reconsider his present environmental situation. Protest may be the outcome of exposure to the materialistic and other benefits that an anticipated "better" life can produce. When rising expectations are not satisfied or demands for change are met by suppression, rejection, and nonintegration, protest is likely to follow the path of increasingly unstable and irrational means to accomplish goals. Protest activity may also be the direct result of institutional failure to accommodate immediate and local demands,3 as in the situation described by Michael Samuels. Resistance, in the context of this volume, is the reaction of a given segment of population to certain environmental or political, economic, cultural, or social conditions which is accompanied by organizational mobilization directed toward the amelioration of adverse conditions.4 Amaury de Souza's analysis of social banditry and Ralph della Cava's and René Ribeiro's focus on messianism relate to such conditions. Eduardo Mondlane maintains that, throughout Portuguese colonial rule in Mo9ambique, cultural rejection was always combined with political resistance.5 This resistance differed considerably from the protest of the Euro'peanized African assimilado, emphasized by Douglas Wheeler in his essay in this volume. While the former was characterized by unification and mobilization, the latter was marked by sporadic appeals manifested through the colonial press. Resistance is frequently manifested through voluntary organizations, especially of a religious nature. Syncretist movements often fused native and colonial religions into a faith with political overtones. Protestant and Catholic missionaries sought local reforms, resulting frequently in suppres3 A theoretical discussion of protest is in Michael Lipsky, "Protest as a Political Resource," The American Political Science Review, LXII (December 1968), 1144-11Í8. * Resistance, as evident in the following discussion, is defined here as resistance to authority rather than as resistance to social change which may ensure the persistance of authority. On the latter, see Centro Latino-Americano de Pesquisas em Ciencias Sociais, Resistencias a mudanfa. Fatóres que impedem ou dificultan! o desenvolviniento (Rio de Janeiro, 1960). 6 See Eduardo C. Mondlane, The Struggle for Mofambique (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1969).

introduction

3

sion by the Portuguese authorities; it was through these overtly religious organizations that there occurred the politization and mobilization of many Africans 8 Alfredo Margarido describes in his essay. Thus resistance within the indigenous populations of our areas of concern can be viewed as an embryonic stage of nationalism. Resistance functions to restructure the society in that new leaders emerge, traditional authority patterns are challenged, and anticolonialism provides for integration and cohesion among diverse ethnic and religious groupings. The Bissau dockworkers' strike in 1958, for example, illustrated urban economic resistance which had widespread influence and ultimately led to the mobilization of the rural peasantry into a nationalist movement which struggled for the independence of Guiñé. 7 Protest and resistance may lead to crisis, an unstable state of affairs in which a decisive change may be impending. Crisis relates to physical and human problems. In Northeast Brazil, for instance, crisis may be the result of droughts or floods.8 It may also be caused by structural changes in the regional economy or by the successes and failures of attempts to find solutions to problems through welfare policies, the migration of people from area to area, and so forth. Crisis might be the result of class conflict and differences between oligarchical rulers and the mass of followers in a particular society. Crisis may well be related to the tensions and alienation of people who see themselves as nonparticipants in the decisions that shape a community. Crisis may also have something to do with the latent or manifest cultural patterns that persist in society over periods of time; violence, for example, is not an uncommon pattern among peasant populations in Northeast Brazil nor among tribal groups in Portuguese Africa. The concepts protest and resistance relate also to opposition and conflict. Opposition is a manifestation of protest or resistance against the control and use of power in society and occurs when those subject to it experience shared feelings of exploitation and oppression. According to Blau, exploitation is dependent on social expectations, "those of the group or groups subject to the power, which determine how they react to given demands for obedience, and those of the group in power which determine the extent of 6

Syncretic and messianistic movements are the focus of Sylvia L. Thrupp, ed., Millenial Dreams in Action—Essays in Comparative Study (The Hague: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Mouton and Company, 1962). 7 On the relationship of resistance to nationalism, see T . O. Ranger, "Connections Between 'Primary Resistance' Movements and Modern Mass Nationalism in East and Central Africa," Journal of African History, IX, no. 3 (1968), 437-453, and IX, no. 4 (1969), 631-M1. 8 In his essay on Northeast Brazil, Albert O. Hirschman in Journeys Toward Progress (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1963), traces the relationship of major droughts to crisis and governmental decision making and assesses the results of those decisions as generally ineffective.

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Introduction

their demands for submission." 9 Conflict may be the result of such expectations. Conflict basically means the incidence of disagreement over fundamental values in society. Such conflict may relate to major cleavages that have historically affected society, among which might be identified cleavages emanating from differences in social and economic class, religious sects, ethnic groups, ideological divisions, and geographical regions. From this we might generalize that the more issues defined in cleavage terms the greater the likelihood of political conflict. Also, the larger the number of cleavagerelated issues that must be resolved simultaneously, the more unstable the political system.10 There are many reasons for our focus on protest and resistance and the specific examples identified and studied in this volume. First, such examples have been treated by others largely as a series of episodes unrelated in the historical "process. The various interpretations offered have generally minimized the importance of such episodes in that process. Second, the movements we have identified have often been considered as marginal or unimportant phenomena, probably because the political allegiance or character of such movements is often undetermined and ambiguous, and because such movements are unlike more commonly known and understood social movements. For instance, these movements are often cast in a world of people who neither read nor write because they are illiterate; the people comprising the movements may be known only to their friends, often only by nickname; they are inarticulate, rarely understood when expressing themselves, and prepolitical—they have only begun to find a vocabulary in which to express their aspirations about the world; they have known a world long-dominated by a system of soldiers, policemen, tax collectors, and the like, all of whom they tend to distrust and despise; and they are confronted with the task of how to adapt themselves to modern society, its life and struggles, as well as how to influence that society to provide for their needs. This collection of essays is divided into several parts. The first part concerns examples of protest and resistance. Contributors have developed case studies drawn from the historical experience of Angola and Brazil. Each contributor was to identify the principal issues or problems as related to 9 Peter M. Blau, Exchange and Power in Social Life (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1964), pp. 227-228. Robert Dahl and colleagues have focused their attention recently on patterns of opposition; see particularly Dahl's Political Opposition in Western Democracies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), especially chapter 11, pp. 332-386. 1 0 Theoretical discussions of conflict are in Charles P. Loomis, "In Praise of Conflict and its Resolution," American Sociological Review, XXXII (December 1967), 875-890; Norman A. Bailey, "Toward a Praxeological Theory of Conflict," Orbis, XI (Winter 1968), 1081-1112; and Douglas Bwy, "Dimensions of Social Conflict in Latin America," The American Behavioral Scientist, II (March-April 1968), pp. 39-49.

Introduction

5

his case study and to consider such questions as: W h y had there been a crisis situation or popular resistance? Was this related to societal conditions? What were the political, social, economic, and psychocultural manifestations? Were natural barriers such as climate, terrain, and resources of significance? A second task was to examine wherever possible such theoretical aspects of protest and resistance in less developed areas of the world and to relate these to the particular case. Third, contributors were invited to evaluate the impact of the protest or resistance upon the society under study and, where possible, to comment on the relationship of conflict, tension, and alienation to issues and problem solving; the impact on recruitment, mobilization, and participation; the effect upon prevailing authority patterns and traditional and newly emerging leadership; the developmental perceptions of both elites and masses; and the restructuring of society at local, regional, and national levels. In assessing the collection as a whole, I note that many of the authors have been concerned with at least one, if not all, of the following themes: human alienation from the sociopolitical system, violence, and nationalism. In examining alienation, many of the papers are asking the question: For whom and why is the existing sociopolitical system so unrewarding as to evoke collective protest, resistance, and violence? If it is true that almost any societal environment provokes protest and violence, then it is important to identify the social conditions that lead to protest and violence and to relate such conditions to the psychological orientations—be they real or imagined —of the actors involved. This is in fact what many of the papers have attempted, for the description and analysis is concerned with the incongruities between the values of certain individuals and groups and those of the existing political authority, the manner in which individuals believe themselves to be ineffective in reforming the sociopolitical system, and the type of behavior, such as protest and violence, that develops as a means to articulate the belief that the political system is unchangeable through peaceful alternatives. The contributors have focused much attention on violence. Throughout the essays there is a fundamental consensus that violence is a significant topic for inquiry. Through the use of historical cases, efforts are made to explain violence in theoretical and comparative terms. There is a concern with the socialization patterns that sanction violence, with traditions of conflict, and with ideologies that justify violence and conflict. The bulk of the essays in this volume are grouped according to geographical area. David Birmingham provides a framework linking the four Angolan essays. His concern is with the relationships of Africans and Europeans in the trade and commerce that shaped response and resistance during the seventeenth century. Alfredo Margarido views Tokoism as a socioreligious

6

Introduction

outgrowth of early protest and resistance to Portuguese occupation and as one of several early messianic and syncretic movements which have provided a forum for criticism of existing traditional institutions and opposition to white colonial rulers. With a narrowed focus, Michael Samuels examines one example of African protest directed without success at achieving educational reforms and local autonomy within an oppressive colonial system. Douglas Wheeler concerns himself with four examples of early protest writings in an attempt to document ideas and activities that later became the foundation for assimilitelo nationalism. Thus these essays on Angola emphasize protest as the African response to colonial rule. A thread of sporadic and sometimes organized African resistance, which runs throughout Angolan history, is attributable, as Birmingham makes clear, to the trade and commerce which brought changes including exploitation, to the traditional economic system, and also to Portuguese attempts at cultural domination and military conquest. The theme of African response to international trade, which runs through Birmingham's essay, links, however crudely, with the theme of the impact of international capitalism in Brazil which runs through the five essays on the Brazilian Northeast. Ralph della Cava's analysis, in particular, stresses the impact of international capitalism on the internal politics and economy of a small backlands community. Shepard Forman analyzes the impact of capitalism on the commercialization of agriculture and the resultant peasant response which allowed protest to be channeled through organizations. International conditions also shaped the military struggle described by Manuel Correia de Andrade. Even such an isolated instance of messianism as that reported by René Ribeiro becomes wrapped up in the events of the modern world and the space age. The major difference between the two sets of essays relates to the two areas under study. Brazil is a fully established and, despite its diversity, more or less integrated society. Angola is a colony of the Portuguese overseas "empire," underdeveloped, exploited, and fully dependent politically on Portugal and economically on Portugal, South Africa, Western Europe, and the United States. Thus, the Brazilian studies quite naturally focus on problems of political, economic, and social integration and on power struggles within both a local and national context. In contrast, the Angolan essays inevitably deal with how people avoid becoming integrated into a Portuguese-dominated society and how they persist in seeking an Angolan society. Yet, despite these differences, we do find that the participants in the Brazilian struggles described in this volume seem to be part of a system appropriately described as "internal colonialism," that their life styles and dependence on the outside world are not much different from those of their

Introduction

7

African counterparts. 11 Thus, in Portuguese Africa it can be argued that Portugal exercises a monopoly in exploiting natural resources, labor, and import-export trade. Portugal, as the dominant power, prevents other countries from exploiting the natural and human resources of the colony, or permits them to do so at will. This monopolization extends to mass culture, and all contact with the outside and with other cultures is funneled through the colonial power. Likewise in Brazil, especially the Northeast, internal colonialism persists as a structural phenomenon bound to the policies of the national government but ultimately tied to the pressures of international capitalism, in the trade, investment, and other forms. It is not strange then that a parallel set of conditions is found in the underdeveloped and exploited parts of Angola and Brazil described in many of our essays. In both areas local communities often remain isolated from a dominant center or metropolis which maintains a monopoly of commerce and trade, credit, and monoculture, as well as discrimination in labor, landholdings, income distribution, credit, and social life. The results are often deformation and dependence, decapitalization, migration, and exodus.12 The five Brazilian essays are linked by several other considerations. All relate to the messianic, often fanatical and charismatic, behavior of lowerclass elements in the rural Northeast. Andrade's attention to black and mulatto elements in the cabanos movement allows for an interesting comparison of black movements not only in Angola but elsewhere as well.13 The attention of Amaury de Souza and Shepard Forman to the mobilization of alienated peasants in a highly patriarchal order exemplifies a theme of class conflict which runs through many of our studies of Brazil and Africa. Delia Cava deals with such conflict, but also with internal disputes within the ruling oligarchies of backlands Northeast Brazil, while Ribeiro's study of a contemporary movement of rural lower-class elements illustrates the common social and economic conditions from which messianic movements of past and present have evolved. As an overview, Marvin Harris and Roger Bastide offer comparative perspectives on Africa and Brazil. Their analysis applies to the territories 11

See Pablo González-Casanova, "Internal Colonialism and National Development," in Irving Louis Horowitz, Josué de Castro, and John Gerassi, eds., Latin American Radicalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1969), pp. 118-139. 12 For the Brazilian case, see the important analysis of capitalist development of underdevelopment by André Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America: Historical Studies of Chile and Brazil (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967), especially pp. 143-218. 13 The revolt of Nat Turner, for example. See Herbert Aptheker, Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion (New York: Humanities Press, 1966), and William Styron, The Confessions of Nat Turner (New York: Random House, 1967).

8

introduction

of Guiñé and Mo9ambique, as well as to Angola. Harris focuses on contrasting styles of colonialism and imperialism in the two areas. Both Harris and Bastide analyze patterns of underdevelopment in the two areas. T h e y refute the Portuguese rhetoric of "civilizing" mission. While Harris examines the roots of Portuguese underdevelopment, Bastide assesses lowerclass response to colonialism and domination. Finally, as a conclusion to this volume, a classification of prenationalist movements in Brazil and Portuguese Africa is offered in an effort to reveal the wide range of examples of protest and resistance found in the experience of the two areas. As such, our conclusion extends well beyond the scope of the present volume. Our objectives are twofold. First, we hope scholars will begin to investigate in systematic fashion the many points of protest and resistance which shaped the history of Brazil and Portuguese Africa. An emphasis on such protest and resistance may lead scholars to reassess many generally accepted assumptions, theories, and myths. Second, w e support our synthesis with extensive bibliographic reference to the available and generally sparse literature in the hope that the reader will read beyond the confines of this volume.

The African Response to Early Portuguese Activities in Angola chapter 1

David Birmingham [The trading relationships of Africans with Europeans shaped both their positive response and their resistance during the seventeenth century. In some regions it may have been the intense African demand for foreign consumer goods which was the dominant economic force in the slave trade. Once trade had begun, African peoples adapted themselves and their institutions with great skill to the shifting pattern of overseas trade. The Portuguese failure to achieve economic gains by cultural colonization led them to seek military domination, but this was effectively resisted by the military systems of the African kingdoms. Attention is drawn to the surprisingly effective military tactics of the Africans and to the role of weapon technology. Military conquest was attempted because Portugal was economically too weak to maintain efficient trade. African traders, however, successfully sought new outlets and new trading partners which allowed for greater profits.] Because Angola's role in history has predominantly been that of a supplier of labor (mào-de-obra) to other parts of the world, including Sâo Tomé, the Costa de Mina, Porto Bello, Brazil, Potosi, and the River Plate, the problems involved in being a large-scale supplier of involuntary migrants should be examined. Since this is not at present feasible for the nineteenth•This essay, written in the early part of 1968, aimed to point out the sparsity of Central African historical studies, and to illustrate some of the interesting themes. Since then the situation has been revolutionized, as four major historians have begun to publish in the field. Joseph C. Miller has worked on Cokwe and Kasanje, Jean-Luc Vellut on Angola and the Kwango states, Phyllis Martin on the Loango coast and its hinter-

12

Protest and Resistance in Angola

century context, this essay will attempt to look at them within the framework of earlier Portuguese activities in Angola. 1 In so doing care will be taken not to overemphasize the importance of the slave trade in the overall economic picture of Angola, and time will be devoted to examining the significance of other commercial attractions. Any study connected with the slave trade and its related activities faces a number of unsolved general questions. The field of slave trade studies has not attracted either European or African scholars. Much more has been written about the effects of African arrivals in the New World than on the effects of their departure from the old one. Historians have tended to make the tacit assumption that the driving force behind the trade was the economic strength and expanding force of Europe and its colonies. Africa is cast in the role of a passive milch cow, and the European slaving entrepreneurs, as rapacious wolves capable of extorting the manpower they required by means other than an equable exchange. This image of the slave trade as a relationship between grossly unequal partners is now undergoing reassessment. How far the pendulum will swing is not yet clear. Certainly African states now have to be studied in great detail to understand their motives, politics, structures, and attitudes; the reassessment may even go so far as to suggest that they played not only an active role in the AfroEuropean relationship, but a dominant role. It may come to be argued that at least in some regions, at some periods, it was the intense African demand for foreign consumer goods that was the dominant economic force in the slave trade. This is a very different proposition from the stereotype of Europeans buying slaves for handfuls of worthless trinkets. land, and W . G . L . Randies on the K o n g o kingdom. Their work, together with my ongoing research, the studies of several students, and the general slave-trade analyses of Rodney, Curtin, Fage, and others have led t o substantial modifications of the ideas that were thrown out here. Some, such as the possible significance of pre-Portuguese trade networks, still need to be worked on. Others, such as the treatment of relationships between Lunda, Imbangala, Luba, and the long-distance trading patterns, no longer ring true. Also one must be much more skeptical than heretofore about prefifteenth-century "empires" in Katanga, and about the early, unstructured explosion of Lunda influences. T h e emphasis that the paper put on the role of the Portuguese as cabotage traders remains valid, though it now lacks originality, having been extensively illustrated in other works. Finally, the question of resistance has undergone total reassessment, and this author, at least, would like to interpret the Imbangala movement as a largely indigenous Mbundu resistance movement, with only minimal outside stimulation. 1 Within the framework of this collection it would have been desirable to include a paper on the slave trade and other forms of labor migration in nineteenth-century Angola. Unfortunately, the basic research on this field has not, to m y knowledge, been published. T h e external and internatonal aspects of the Angolan export of labor in this period have been portrayed recently by James D u f f y , in A Question of Slavery (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), and by Richard Hammond, in Portugal and Africa (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967).

The African Response to Early Portuguese Activities

13

The prelude to a study of African response and resistance to the Portuguese in Angola occurs in the old kingdom of Kongo. Superficially, the story of the Kongo kingdom and of the first hundred years of Portuguese presence in Central Africa is well known, but as yet there has been no serious study of the massive documentation that covers the history of KongoPortuguese relations.2 Fundamental questions about the aspirations of either side, about their relative political, technological, and economic strengths and weaknesses, about the nature of their associations and conflicts, have still to be more clearly examined. Occasional reference to Kongo will be brought into this paper for the purpose of comparison and discussion, but it will not form the center of focus. The development of a more military confrontation between Portugal and Africa than that which occurred in Kongo might profitably be considered to begin in 1575, in the region of the lower Kwanza River. Both the date and the place of this development are significant. The date marks the successful completion of the first large-scale Portuguese military campaign in tropical Africa. This was the war in which a Portuguese army of six hundred men checked and eventually drove back the Jaga hordes who had driven them out of the Kongo kingdom. In the short run the Portuguese had been the winners; their use of firearms had apparently been decisive, although it was probably the psychological impact created by the noise and smoke of the matchlocks, rather than their speed or accuracy of fire, that had been decisive. Moreover, in this victory the Portuguese had been assisted by a substantial Kongo army led by the king and deeply committed to regaining its lost lands. With these two advantages the Portuguese won their first military exploit in West Central Africa between 1571 and 1574.8 Despite their victory, the Portuguese had learned from the Jaga that armed African resistance to foreign enterprise could be sudden and devastating. The confidence and security of the early colonial pioneers melted. After 1575 a new generation of men, who had grown up under the quixotic rule of King Sebastiâo, took charge of Portuguese affairs in Central Africa and determined that they would hold their land by right of conquest and not 2 See the five volumes of texts and commentary published by L. Jadin in the Bulletin de l'Institut Historique Belge de Rome (1961-1968) and Jean Cuvelier and L. Jadin, L'Ancien Congo d'après les archives Romaines (Bruxelles, 19Î4). The best popular account of Kongo is perhaps G. Balandier, Daily Life in the Kongo (London, 1968). A short analysis is found in Jan Vansina, Kingdoms of the Savanna (Madison, 1966). The most detailed documentation in Portuguese is in A. Brâsio, Monumenta missionâria africana (Lisbon, 1952-1968), a ten-volume collection of documents relating to Portuguese enterprise on the west coast of Central Africa from the fifteenth to the midseventeenth century. [This was written before Dr. Randies' thesis appeared.] 3 See D. Lopes and F. Pigafetta, Description du Royaume de Congo, ed. by W . Bal (Louvain, 1963); R. Delgado, Histôria de Angola (Lobito, 19ÎÎ), Vol. I; and David Birmingham, Trade and Conflict in Angola (London, 1966).

14

Protest and Resistance in Angola

in hazardous cooperation with any Lusophile prince such as the king of Kongo. If the date at which the Portuguese began their military enterprise seems significant, their choice of a site is probably even more so. It seems likely that, before the Portuguese attempted to make the Kwanza their high road into Africa, it was already an important trading artery. On the south side of the river, not far from its mouth, there are important deposits of rock salt.4 These were exploited in pre-Portuguese times and may have formed the basis of an important commercial system. The salt was quarried in slabs two feet long and used as a currency unit at least in the Angolan kingdom of Ndongo if not further afield. The Jesuit Gouveia, writing in about 1563, said that rock salt was the main richness of Angola and that traders came from many nations in the interior to buy it. He referred to one people in particular, the Dambia Songe, who came from seventeen days' journey beyond Angola to buy salt, and who were very familiar with the far interior.5 A century later Cadornega described Lunda traders who came to the fringes of Angola to buy salt, suggesting that the trade continued to be important.6 In addition to rock salt there were pans of marine salt along the coast north of the Kwanza which were evidently exploited by the end of the fifteenth century. One African historical version of the opening struggle with the Portuguese sees it in terms of a struggle to control these salt supplies. The Pende tradition says that "the white men spat fire and took away the king's salt pans." It is important to note, however, that only the coastal pans and not the mines further inland were captured.7 It seems likely that the Portuguese chose the site for their new-style colonial venture of 1575 with an experienced eye on possible trade opportunities; certainly elsewhere on the African coast they were very skilled in siting their trading posts at the terminals of pre-European trade routes, such as Elmina and Sofala. In the colonization charter of 1571, King Sebastiao awarded the donatàrio, Paulo Dias de Novais, a monopoly of the trade both in marine salt and in rock salt.8 In the light of the probable importance of the Kisama salt mines, the 4 Salt appears to be among the very first commodities which a community requires when its economic activity grows beyond the point of local subsistence. Its vital role in the early development of long-distance trade in Africa (or indeed in Europe) is well documented. So far all too little is known about the main salt suppliers and salt routes of Central Africa. 5 Gouveia's correspondence in Brasio, op. cit., II, 518-521. 6 See Cadornega, História geral das guerras angolanas (3 vols.; Lisbon, 1940-1942), a contemporary chronicle. 7 G . L. Haveaux, La tradition historique des Bapende Orientaux (Brussels, 1954), p. 47. 8 The charter is reprinted in Brasio, op. cit., Ill, 36-51.

The African Response to Early Portuguese Activities

15

Portuguese attempts to conquer them should perhaps be regarded as a major rather than as a subsidiary part of their attempts to control the economy of Angola. This endeavor eventually failed. In 1593 an abortive attempt was made to erect a fort near the mines; it was quickly abandoned, and in the following year the Portuguese army was resoundingly defeated by Kafushe, an important Kisama ruler. In 1602 a further setback occurred when Governor Coutinho died while campaigning in the same area.9 Throughout the seventeenth century Portuguese governors at Luanda planned new attempts to conquer the south bank of the Kwanza, but always in vain. They tended to explain this failure in terms of the arid climate and the "barbarity" of the Kisama peoples. It now seems that perhaps their failure should be looked at more in terms of sophisticated African resistance and the protection of a vital economic lifeline from foreign take-over. Previous studies of early Portuguese conquests in Angola have emphasized the drive towards the silver mines of Cambambe. These mines did not exist, of course, but the Portuguese apparently fought a wearisome and costly war for thirty years to reach them. It may now be more realistic to suggest that the emphasis on silver should take a secondary place to that on salt. The glamor of silver mines was certainly used by those who appealed for funds to support the Angolan venture, but perhaps they knew that in reality the profits would come from better-established commercial lines. In the sixteenth century it was comparatively easy to sell stories about fabulous silver mines to the colonial powers who had heard of the fantastic discoveries in Peru. It is still difficult to accept the idea that anything so ephemeral as the reports on Cambambe silver, especially in view of the authoritative contrary reports which were on record, 10 should have played a decisive role in any enterprise as costly as the early wars of conquest in Angola. Another genuine economic factor, in addition to the salt trade, may have been a trade in copper which Portuguese sources frequently discuss but of which Portuguese entrepreneurs never seem to have gained control. From 1617 on, considerable efforts were made to establish a new colony at Benguela in the belief that the region yielded copper; it seems, however, that the copper ornaments the local people wore must have been acquired by trade and not locally produced. In any event, no local copper was found in Benguela, and only much later did the Portuguese find small quantities of copper in the southern part of the Kongo kingdom." 9

Birmingham, op. cit., pp. J9-62. See, for instance, Baltnasar de Castro's report of 1526 on Angola (in Brasio, op. cit., I, 48S-487), stating that no silver mines existed. 11 A. A. Felner, Angola (Coimbra, 1933) contains the best documentation on the founding of Benguela. 10

16

Protest and Resistance in Angola

T h e second major reason w h y the Portuguese chose the Kwanza Valley as the starting point of their colonial expansion into Angola may have been the presence there of the Imbangala. Although the story of the Imbangala and of their intrusion into Angola is b y no means told as yet, b y dint of hypotheses and counterhypotheses some progress is being made toward an understanding of this movement and its momentous significance and ramifications. At present it seems possible that b y 1575 the Imbangala had opened a route from the very heart of Central Africa to the Kwanza mouth. 1 2 T h e existence of such an opening may have been a factor in the Portuguese decision to put so many men and resources into the establishment of the Luanda colony. Their awareness of the link with the far interior may have been tenuous, but potentially it was a sound basis for establishing a commercial colony. In looking at the problem of the Imbangala, the first question to be considered is that of the interrelationship, or lack of it, between the opening of sea trade on the Atlantic coast and the turbulent political changes in Katanga that resulted in the establishment of the Lunda Empire. T h e opening of trade took place in the last years of the fifteenth century; b y 1500, slave traders from the plantation island of Sâo T o m é were active at the Kwanza mouth. 1 3 Thus the opening of the Atlantic slave trade on the coast is well documented and dated. W h a t is much less well established is the speed with which the effects of this new and potent form of commercial activity penetrated the interior. T h e interior of Central Africa is a region that appears to have a long tradition of state building. Trading states and even empires may have flourished in Katanga for the last thousand years. T h e r e is clear evidence that the region's copper resources were being exploited b y the eighth century, and it seems possible that the area was connected from an early period with a long-distance trading network which reached down to the Zambezi River and hence to the international trade routes of the East African coast. Little or nothing is yet known of the earlier Katanga states; but we do know that, about the time the Portuguese began to open overseas trading routes to the west coast of Central Africa, some major changes were taking 1 2 David Birmingham, "The Date and Significance of the Imbangala Invasion of Angola," Journal of African History, VI, No. 2 (1965), 14Î-1Î2. [Although the "date" arrived at in this article seems sound, the "significance" alleged is much more dubious in retrospect.] 1 3 It is interesting to note that the best slaves arriving in Sâo Tomé at this period were not kept for local use but resold on the Gold Coast to Akan merchants in exchange for gold dust. Only slaves who would have been rejected as unfit by the Akan were retained on sugar plantations or sent to Lisbon. David Birmingham, "The Regimentó da Mina," Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, M. [A useful starting point for research on the Imbangala will be a recent article by Beatrix Heirtze on Kisama.]

The African Response to Early Portuguese Activities

17

place in the political alignments of the region. The key question is whether or not these events were related.14 The most important of the political upheavals in Central Africa was the one that led to the founding of the Lunda Empire. Before this, there had been a series of greater or smaller Luba states which ruled over Katanga with varying measures of success and continuity. One of these Luba states was responsible for spreading the idea of centralized political administration westward to the home of the Lunda and for establishing in Lunda a new dynasty which began to impose new, more severe forms of domination on the loosely united Lunda clans. Some of the indigenous Lunda leaders attempted to resist the new regime and, on failing to do so, fled westward accumulating supporters until eventually they made contact with the Portuguese. This movement probably consisted of a number of groups traveling along different routes at different times; the earliest seems to have reached the coast by the third quarter of the sixteenth century. In his recent discussions of these movements, Jan Vansina has expressed the view that the Lunda did not arrive in Angola until the seventeenth century. He suggests that the migrant hordes in Angola in the sixteenth century were Jaga escaping from Kongo. T o confuse matters further, he suggests that both the Jaga and the Lunda were locally known as Imbangala.15 Vansina's arguments for rejecting the earlier dating of the Lunda migrations is weakest where it deals with the Lunda-Imbangala tradition. This describes their journey to the coast, not to some point in the interior which the Portuguese had reached some thirty years after the beginning of their conquest. This evidence, together with the references to the Imbangala leader Kasanje found in the Portuguese documents of the 1570s, continues to suggest that the migration was a mid-sixteenth century phenomenon rather than an early seventeenth-century one. Vansina does, however, raise two important questions. First, if the Imbangala arrived by the 1570s, then their progress through Central Africa is exactly contemporary with that of the Jaga. There is no obvious and inherent reason they should not have been contemporary and parallel movements; in fact, so little is known of the Jaga that they could conceivably be an offshoot of the Lunda-Imbangala migration. More probably, 1 4 Another whole field of speculation concerns the possibility of seaborne trade on the west coast before the Portuguese arrival. So far there is no evidence to show that this existed to any large extent or was an influential factor, but more needs to be known about the early economic history of, for instance, the Kongo kingdom. 1 5 Vansina, "The Founding of the Kingdom of Kasanje," Journal of African History, IV, No. 3 (1963), 355—374; and "More on the Invasions of Kongo and Angola by the Jaga and the Imbangala," Journal of African History, VII, No. 3 (1966), 421-429; Birmingham, "The Date and Significance of the Imbangala Invasion of Angola."

18

Protest and Resistance in Angola

the Jaga may have erupted directly from the turbulent area of the Luba states and traveled to the Atlantic coast of Kongo, while the Imbangala were indirectly set in motion by the same turbulent change when it hit Lunda. There would be no cause for surprise in the closely parallel dating of the two movements if this were true. 16 Second, Vansina fits the Imbangala dating into the chronology of the Lunda dynasty established at the same time. If a really reliable king list could be established, it might be difficult to reconcile with the earlier date. At present, however, the earliest phase of the Lunda dynasty looks a little less than reliable, and perhaps some of the early rulers' names cover a whole period of Lunda evolution rather than a single reign or generation. Even if one took a later date of around 1600 for the founding of the dynasty, some early rulers would have to have been remarkably long-lived to give an acceptable reign-length average up to the mid-nineteenth century. This, however, is a subject where one must tread warily until more thorough research has been carried out on the surviving oral traditions. In looking at the Lunda-Imbangala migration to the coast of Angola, Africanists have tended to assume that the driving force of the movement came from behind, from the inland savanna. One has looked for population explosions, for violent invasions, for the kind of disruptions that might drive peoples out of their traditional homeland. It does seem more logical, however, to attempt to relate the changes in the central grasslands with the changes on the coast. Knowledge of the trading opportunities and particularly of the novel weapons offered by the Portuguese may have penetrated slowly into the interior, but there is no reason to believe that in fifty years, from 1500 to 1550, it had not created some echoes as far afield as Katanga. This does not for a moment presuppose that any regular twoway traffic with caravans, supplies of carriers, and all the paraphernalia of organized long-distance trade was set up in so short a time. It does, however, seem possible—and even likely—that, by a slow process of exchange from neighbor to neighbor, foreign material goods and rumors of foreign firearms filtered through the savanna and reached the Lunda and the Luba. The Luba then began to spread their influence over their western neighbors, and some Lunda groups set out to reach the source of these new trade goods. If this picture is correct, the relationship between Africans and Portuguese in the lower Kwanza Valley would have been very much a two-way interaction. The earliest Portuguese trade was attracted by the existence of an old salt track into the interior. The growth of Portuguese trade then 16 This interpretation has not stood the test of time, as mentioned earlier in this chapter. See my recent unpublished paper on the subject, Dar es Salaam, 1971.

The African Response to Early Portuguese Activities

19

had repercussions back along this route to beyond the Kwango and Kasai rivers. This influence led in turn to the establishment of tenuous links between Angola and Katanga and caused the Lunda-Imbangala migrations. Such an opening may have encouraged the Portuguese to choose the lower Kwanza for further commercial activity and as the site for a major endeavor to conquer a highway into the African interior. At the same time they had largely failed to penetrate Central Africa from the east, up the Zambezi, and so new energy was put into the search for an opening from the west. The Angolan Wars, which began on the Kwanza River in 1575, are remarkable in the annals of African history for a number of reasons. In the precolonial period they constitute the only serious attempt by a foreign nation to acquire by conquest a piece of territory in tropical Africa. The closest parallel was probably the Dutch penetration of South Africa from the Cape. But whereas the Dutch advanced into a comparatively poor, underpopulated country and faced the resistance of mainly pre-Iron Age nomadic peoples, the Portuguese in Angola faced the full weight of an organized Iron Age society—and what is more, did so nearly a century earlier, when European firearm technology was still in its infancy. 17 Another parallel was the Portuguese ¡penetration of the lower Zambezi; but this was very different in character from the conquest of Angola, consisting almost from the outset of a more gradual settler advance which was partly absorbed by the African host community and retained only minimal distinguishing features, and few outside links, to differentiate its chiefs from the neighboring African rulers.18 One of the questions that should be asked about the Angolan Wars is, of course, why did not the Portuguese, or any other foreign power, attempt this kind of military penetration elsewhere in Africa. One rather facile answer has tended to attribute this reticence to the inhospitality of the climate and to the virulence of tropical diseases. This, however, does not seem an adequate explanation. N o part of Africa can have been worse than Angola for European mortality. Pero Rodrigues estimated that of the 2,000 European troops sent to Angola in the first twenty years of the war, 1,200 either died of fever or left the country hastily lest they do so.19 This problem did not decrease with time, and for the next three centuries new arrivals 17 For details of the wars and descriptions of the weapons and tactics used, see Cadornega, op. cit. 18 For a recent study of the Portuguese on the Zambezi and their relationships with the adjacent African communities see M. D. D. Newitt, "The Zambezi Prazos in the Eighteenth Century," Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1967. 19 Pero Rodrigues, Historia da residencia dos padres da Companhia de Jesus em Angola, 1954, cited in Brasio, op. cit., IV, 54(5-581.

20

Protest and Resistance in Angola

from Europe faced a very high risk of sudden death from tropical disease. If the deterrent value of disease cannot adequately explain why a conquest colony was established in Angola and nowhere else in tropical Africa, other explanations must be sought. One argument might be that Portugal was able to find trading partners capable of responding to her commercial needs in West Africa but not in Central Africa. The Wolof states of Senegambia, the Akan kingdoms of the Gold Coast, and the empire of Benin were all states accustomed to interstate trading. They all had the machinery for accumulating commodity surpluses for external sale. They all had experience of long-distance trade with the empires of the western Sudan and through them, indirectly, with the Mediterranean world. They had evolved the state mechanisms needed to control marketing, transport, and road clearance, and to afford protection to caravans. They had worked out taxation systems to pay for the many services foreign trade required. In contrast, the western part of Central Africa was not even on the fringe of world commerce before the arrival of the Portuguese. It seems to have been one of the continent's most isolated backwaters. This is not to suggest that West Central Africa did not have an internal system of regional trade. Salt, ironware, copper ornaments, and numerous kinds of plain and decorated palm cloth were undoubtedly exchanged throughout the region. But apparently the region itself was not linked to trade outside Africa in the way that much of West Africa was and possibly that even the copperproducing states of Katanga were. West Central Africa had probably not, therefore, evolved the political means of fostering and controlling longdistance trade to the extent that other parts of Africa had. If the conquest was indeed determined by the failure of Portugal to find stately trading partners who matched up to her needs, it was not for want of seeking them. For nearly one hundred years the Portuguese built up their relations first with the kingdom of Kongo and later with the kingdom of Ndongo. The relationship between Portugal and Kongo has usually been analyzed in religious and diplomatic terms, in other words, in the terms of the most literate Portuguese participants, the ambassadors and the priests. In analyzing what Portugal and Kongo expected from each other, one must surely look for the commercial interests of each party rather than presume another instance of "uneconomic imperialism."20 Although much stress has been laid on the religious, diplomatic, and strategic aspects of Portuguese expansion traditionally associated with Prince Henry, these make less sense than the hardheaded commercial interests led by the merchants of Lisbon in the early fifteenth century and taken over 2 0 The phrase is from Hammond, Portugal and Africa, and describes his interpretation of Portuguese colonial expansion in the nineteenth century.

The African Response to Early Portuguese Activities

21

by the crown when the Eldorado of Mina had been reached.21 Kongo may have looked to some like the key to an encirclement of the Muslim world, but it is doubtful how important this concept was for a power as commercially motivated as was Portugal. The eighty years of close contact between Kongo and Portugal from 1490 to 1570 should be looked at essentially in terms of a search for economic returns. This can be seen at two levels. First, at the intergovernment level there appears to have been an overall plan for large-scale Westernization and economic development on a European model. Portugal sent to Kongo a number of teachers, craftsmen, builders, and other skilled men and women in what Jan Vansina describes as an attempt at "massive acculturation." 22 It might also be described as a neocolonial search to achieve economic takeoff. It was a long-term project calling initially for a high investment of men and materials in the hope of later returns. The second level at which the Portuguese were seeking economic return from Kongo was at the level of individual traders who wished to extract what profit they could in the minimum time with the minimum investment. This ambition was often in direct conflict with the overt government aim. Instead of using the local labor supply for economic growth, the traders carried it away to invest in the new development of Sâo Tomé and Brazil. This process rapidly undermined the Portuguese royal plans for the economic evolution of Kongo, and very soon King Manuel and his successors began to lose faith in their grandiose vision and to encourage tacitly, and even openly, the movement of labor supplies from Kongo to other Portuguese spheres of interest. The question of why the Portuguese (and subsequently all the other European powers) found it more expedient to foster the development of American colonies with African labor rather than to encourage direct production in Africa is one that still requires much thought. Perhaps the first reason is that America had much greater resources of unused and fertile land. Although Africa may not have been very densely populated, most of the regions adjacent to the Atlantic coast probably contained as great a population as they could readily support given the agricultural methods available. Hence, land shortage may have been one reason European enterprises did not flourish in Africa. Another reason, probably a more serious one, was undoubtedly the ability of Africans and African kingdoms to resist outside encroachments on their sovereignty. 21 For a detailed study of the relative importance of Prince Henry's landowning aristocracy and the Lisbon merchants in the Portuguese expansion, see V. Magalhâes Godinho, A economia dos descobrimentos henrtqutnas (Lisbon, 1962). 22 Vansina, Kingdoms of the Savanna, p. 37.

22

Protest and Resistance in Angola

The question of resistance to foreign enterprise on African soil brings one back to the question of why, in the whole of Africa, was it in Angola that the one major attempt at European conquest took place. It was suggested above that West Central Africa may have been so much a backwater in African development that it had not evolved the commercial facilities European traders had become accustomed to finding in West Africa. It may be, moreover, that this same remoteness meant that the states of West Central Africa had not evolved military systems that were as effective as those of western, northern, 23 or eastern Africa in resisting outside encroachment. This argument, however, needs careful handling since the Portuguese found, once they were committed to a policy of military conquest, that their progress was exceedingly slow. Although it may have been true in the early sixteenth century that a state such as Ndongo was less well equipped to meet aggression than, say, Benin, by the later sixteenth century the situation had evidently changed. When war broke out between the Ngola of Ndongo and the Governor of Luanda in 1578, the two sides were found to be fairly evenly matched. Thus the military advantage which Portugal may have had vis-a-vis the states of Central Africa and which may have stimulated thoughts of conquest had been substantially lost by the later sixteenth century. The activities of the Portuguese themselves may have had much to do with this change in the situation. In their search for trading partners and commercial exchanges on the West African pattern, they had been in contact with Ndongo at least since 1520. The subsequent sixty years must have seen a growth in the stature, organization, and power of Ndongo which severely hampered the Portuguese when they switched policy from trade to conquest. Ndongo had developed from a small state to a substantial kingdom with considerable knowledge of European trade. It even had several dozen Portuguese resident at the court and willing to advise the king on how best to resist encroachment by rival Portuguese who had founded the new Luanda colony.24 Another field of discussion related to the attempt by Portugal to strengthen its position through conquest is the question of Portugal's own economic aptitude to become a major colonial trading power. The success of the later trading powers in Africa, Holland, Britain, and France was based on the sale of manufactured goods which they could produce more cheaply, if not always more skillfully, than most African nations. In exchange they 23 It must be remembered that much early Portuguese experience of colonial warfare was gained in Morocco. 24 The opening of the Angolan Wars in 1579 and the attendant inter-Portuguese factionalism are documented in papers in the British Museum manuscript collection anj reprinted in Brasio, op. cit., IV, 308-309.

The African Response to Early Portuguese Activities

23

received ivory, dyewoods, minerals, gum, and, above all, slave labor. Portugal began trading in Africa before the success of large-scale manufacturing had taken place in Europe, and even at a later date Portugal never ranked as an important industrial power. The basis of her trade was somewhat different from, and decidedly more complex than, the straight exchange of manufactures for raw materials and labor. In Kongo, Portugal was paying for the slaves it acquired with less tangible returns such as teachers, missionaries, technical assistance, and a few rich cloths and other exotic material goods for the aristocracy. The payments made by Kongo might be partially regarded as a sort of tribute to a dominant superpower. In some instances the Portuguese apparently supplied limited military aid and in return received prisoners of war. Where Portugal did not have this favorable position (in West Africa, for instance), the terms of trade often involved a multiple series of exchanges. For example, on the Gold Coast gold was sold to the Portuguese in return for slaves, cloth, and beads, all of which had been previously bought from other African trading partners, especially Benin. In Upper Guinea the development of Portuguese trade was even more complex. T h e main African demand was for cloth, but since Portugal either could not supply the cloth at all or could not supply it of the right quality, the Portuguese evolved a multi-tier trading system: slaves were bought for Portuguese raw materials such as iron and then taken to the Cape Verde Islands to plant cotton and indigo; at the next stage skilled African weavers and dyers were brought over to the islands to start a textile industry which produced cloth of a type acceptable to African customers; this, in turn, could be used to buy more slaves on the mainland until a surplus of slave labor had been accumulated over and above the requirements of Cape Verde. This surplus could then be exported to the Americas and exchanged for sugar and tobacco. In this way Portugal gained entry to the Atlantic slave trade with a minimum capital investment and without the need for a large and continuous flow of cheaply produced goods from a home industry. T h e ingredients it supplied were mainly enterprise and sea transport. 25 In Angola something of a similar sort took place. T h e Portuguese used palm cloth manufactured in Loango as one of their staple means of purchasing slaves; this palm cloth even became the normal currency among both Portuguese and Africans in Angola. But palm cloth still had to be bought. T h e Portuguese therefore hit on the even more profitable idea of imposing sovereignty and expecting tribute in a tradable commodity. 25 Walter Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast (London: Oxford University Press, 1970). In connection with the Upper Guinea trade, it may be noted that at the beginning of the European expansion the Iberian Peninsula had a comparatively advanced metallurgical industry, and iron could be efficiently produced and exported.

24

Protest and Resistance in Angola

This latter concept, which probably grew out of the deteriorating Portuguese position in Kongo, was probably at the base of the conquest of Angola. The conquest may be thought of not as a means of encouraging trade but as a means of acquiring wealth by methods other than trade, since Portugal was not in a position to offer satisfactory exchanges. The constant emphasis placed by the participants of the conquest on the benefits they were bringing to the country—"civilization," Christianity, the suzerainty of a great Catholic prince—might be interpreted as an admission that the material goods brought were not to be considered the total exchange for those extracted. The idea that Portugal undertook military conquests because she was economically too weak to trade efficiently may have appeared tenuous at first but probably gained strength when rival European powers began to take an interest in Angola. There is little doubt that the Dutch could offer better trade than the Portuguese and that if there had been completely free economic competition in Angola, Portugal would have lost more of her trade more rapidly to the Dutch than she actually did. As it was, the Portuguese were able to defend their position until gradually it shifted from one where slaves were acquired in return for the intangible benfits of "Lusitanianization" to one in which slaves were obtained by trade, albeit a trade in which constant military attempts were made to impose monopoly conditions and forcibly exclude foreign competition rather than economically outbid it. The gradual shift that did occur was largely due to the economic growth of Brazil in the seventeenth century that strengthened the competitiveness of Portuguese traders. Brazilian tobacco, in particular, became an essential item of any commercial exchange on the Angolan coast, and a rumlike drink called gerebita was also in heavy demand. These greatly added to Portuguese purchasing power, previously dependent either on coarse cloth and wines from Europe or on very expensive luxuries from India. By the eighteenth century the situation had so developed that the Portuguese and English traders sometimes furtively cooperated in order to overcome the English deficiency in Brazilian tobaccos and the Portuguese shortage of metal goods, especially brassware; clandestine exchanges took place along the Kongo coast, thus enabling both the Portuguese from Luanda and the English from Loango to offer a better range of wares to their customers. Portuguese competiveness was also temporarily increased by the introduction of direct sea communication with India, until it was found that the popularity of Indian materials virtually destroyed the market for inferior European stuffs. A further question about the acquisition of slaves related neither to the imposition of suzerainty in order to extract tribute nor to negotiated commercial exchanges, but to the straight military capture of Africans by

The African Response to Early Portuguese Activities

25

Portuguese-led troops for purposes of enslavement. The capture of slaves was probably quite common and lucrative during the early campaigns of conquest. A horde of traders seems to have followed in the wake of the army in order to buy captives from the soldiers in return for cloth. This probably constituted the major form of remuneration that the soldiers received. By the early seventeenth century, however, the capture of slaves was being discouraged both by the metropolitan government, as being detrimental to the orderly raising of tribute, and by the commercial interests, for whom war was destructive of regular trade. Military campaigns were nevertheless still initiated for slave-raiding purposes, particularly by governors who found this the quickest way to supplement their lean official salaries. But, as a proportion of the total exports, the number of slaves captured directly by Portuguese soldiers must have declined rapidly from the early years as the area of involvement in the slave trade spread into the interior beyond the reach of the Portuguese forces. It was suggested above that the Portuguese may have chosen the Kwanza as the site for the colony because it had an old established salt-trading route into the interior and because it was in this area that they met Imbangala peoples who had come from the far interior and might therefore furnish them a link with rich territories yet unknown. Any hope that the Portuguese may have had of gaining quick access to Katanga and even Mozambique was rapidly quenched by the development first of effective military resistance and secondly of powerful trading barriers. Behind these barriers, however, the economic effects of Portuguese trading spread widely and rapidly, though entirely under African control and with African organization. The growth of African institutions designed to gain benefit from the new situation created by the opening of trade on the Atlantic seaboard is perhaps the most striking facet of the African response to the early Portuguese activities. The development of military resistance, even very effective military resistance, is not so surprising, since the. Mbundu people of Ndongo were fighting for their survival and for their most precious possession—land. But the evolution of a complex trading network, which by the late eighteenth century tapped the resources of much of Central Africa and at the same time prevented any entry by outsiders, was an astonishing phenomenon in an area most of which apparently had had little previous experience of organized long-distance trade. The period of Portuguese conquest from 1575 to about 1640 and the corresponding Mbundu military resistance is a well-known story and needs no elaboration here.24 What does still need asking, however, is how and why the military phase of Portuguese activity and of African response gave 26

Birmingham, Trade and Conflict in Angola, chaps, iii and iv.

26

Protest and Resistance in Angola

way to one in which armed force played a relatively slight role. T h e normal explanation that, after nearly a century of fighting, Portugal had become "exhausted" is hardly enlightening. Various other explanations come to mind. T h e first may be that Portugal was able, by the late seventeenth century, to offer an increasing range and volume of goods from Brazil in exchange for the Angolan labor it required. This meant that the costly use of armies to participate in the process of slave acquisition could be reduced. Another possible reason for the declining use of military force in Angola may have been a decline in the Brazilian demand for slaves, the result of economic depression in plantation areas due largely to British, Dutch, and French competition in the Caribbean. Certainly the declared number of slaves leaving Luanda dropped in the late seventeenth century to one-half or even one-third of the mid-century figure. At this time the sugar plantations were becoming self-sufficient in labor, and the early eighteenth-century boom in mining, which caused a tremendous new demand for slave labor in Brazil, was yet to come. A more important reason for the decline of military activity, however, should probably be seen in the growth of effective resistance or evasion by Portugal's opponents. In the second half of the seventeenth century, the kingdoms of Matamba and Kasanje grew to fill the places of K o n g o and Ndongo. They established themselves on the line of the Kwango River and maintained armies which ensured them protection from Portuguese attack. These states not only formed an effective military barrier to further Portuguese penetration, but they also gained a strong hold on the flow of trade in the opposite direction, from the interior to the Portuguese territories. Until the nineteenth century no Portuguese is known to have crossed the Kwango, and few traders from the interior were able to reach Luanda. After nearly a hundred years of war, two states had evolved in Angola capable of matching if not exceeding the military and commercial power of the Portuguese colony. These states then began to impose their own conditions on the trade and to exact payments in their terms rather than in those of the Portuguese. T h e Portuguese attempted to maintain their position of commercial superiority and for long periods had a resident at the Kasanje court. But the position of the resident seems to have been as much one of the servant to the Kasanje crown as servant to the crown of Portugal; whenever his actions appeared deterimental to Kasanje, he was expelled. T h e rise of the great commercial states of Matamba and Kasanje was only one of the ways by which African interests attempted to circumvent the overexacting power of Portuguese Angola. T h e other major development, concentrated more especially in the eighteenth century, was a sweeping reorientation of the trade routes of Central Africa. Our knowledge of

The African Response to Early Portuguese Activities

27

these changes, and of the overall growth in trade that took place in the eighteenth century, is still so limited as to consist largely of conjectures, but these conjectures can be assembled into an outline which might be useful in stimulating further research. It was suggested above that the opening of the west coast trade may have sparked the founding of the Lunda Empire. This foundation in turn led to the emigration of many Lunda groups who escaped from the control of the new dynasty. Gradually, however, the dynasty asserted itself; b y the late seventeenth century, some hundred years after its establishment, a new type of Lunda expansion was being launched. Instead of refugees who wished to break their ties with the center, this second Lunda expansion consisted of centrally controlled expeditions establishing satellite states among surrounding peoples and bringing them into the Lunda sphere of influence. This controlled and structured expansion of Lunda was probably associated with the growth of and change in trading patterns. T h e most important area of expansion may have been toward the northwest, where Lunda dynasties were established on the middle Kasai and even as far west as the lower Kwango. It seems likely that this growth was associated with the growth of Dutch, English, and French trade on the Loango coast north of the Congo River. 2 7 T h e growth of non-Portuguese trade in Loango is hard to account for in terms of the immediate hinterland of the coast. B y the late eighteenth century the trade may have reached 20,000 slaves a year, a fantastic number which could hardly be coming from the sparsely populated immediate vicinity. It seems more likely that the growth was linked to a supply far into the interior, beyond the lower Congo. T o gether these two movements—the expansion of Lunda and the growth of Loango trade—provided an effective stop to the growth of Portuguese trade; the Portuguese were very conscious of this and unsuccessfully attempted b y various means to either block the trade as it crossed Kongo or else oust their competitors from the Loango coast. Incidentally, the shifting of Lunda trade away from Portuguese Angola also undercut the position of the Kwango middlemen at Kasanje and Matamba whose power had been just as effective in limiting Lunda commercial freedom as in limiting the Portuguese. T h e opening of new, more profitable, and less restricted trading opportunities for Lunda also opened the way for expansion into new areas of supply for the slave trade. Parallel with the northwest expansion was an 2 7 A study of the Loango kingdom in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is being prepared by Phyllis Martin at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. [This study was completed for a PhD. in 1970 and will be published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford. It does not, however, shed much light on this hypothesis.]

28

Protest and Resistance in Angola

eastern expansion which may partly be explained as an attempt to gain domination of the Central African trade toward the east but which was probably also an attempt to increase the supply of slaves that could be sent to the west coast. Such an interpretation, however, places an extreme emphasis on the role of the slave trade in the development of Lunda. Perhaps this situation should be looked at with caution. Finally, the third major factor concerning the development of the trade network of eighteenth-century Central Africa is the development of the Ovimbundu states. W h e n were they founded? W h a t stimulated their founding? How different was their relationship with Benguela from that of the older states with Luanda? At what stage, if at all, did they start siphoning trade out of the Lunda Empire? W h a t influence did they have on such important neighbors as the Cokwe and the Lozi? Let it not be forgotten that Central African history still consists of far more questions than it does answers. 28 T h e picture shown here is one of several African peoples adapting themselves and their institutions to the shifting pattern of overseas trade. It began with Kongo, and to a lesser extent Ndongo, attempts to benefit from friendly contact with the Portuguese. W h e n neither side appeared to be achieving the desired rate of economic growth the method shifted to military confrontation. Portugal sought to achieve b y military domination a profit she had failed to gain by cultural colonization. But Ndongo, and more especially Matamba and Kasanje, were able to evolve military systems capable of stalemating the Portuguese in all but a one-hundred-mile stretch of the lower Kwanza Valley. T h e emphasis shifted again, this time from conquest to trade, and once again the African partners in the overseas trade were able to adapt their pattern of operations to gain the greatest profit. As the sources of supply spread further and further into the heart of the continent, new outlets were sought to parts of the coast not under Portuguese control; thus a major choice of options was opened to the African suppliers. Finally, in the later eighteenth century, the pattern seems to have changed again; Portugal once more became the major trader. T h e key to this revival probably lay in the developments taking place among the Ovimbundu south of the Kwanza River, but these developments still await detailed study. 2 9 2 8 For more detail and source material on this final section of the paper, consult Vansina, Kingdoms of the Savannas, a comprehensive but condensed account of the material so far available for the study of Central African history, highlighted with valuable and imaginative insights into the major problems and theories; and Birmingham, Trade and Conflict in Angola, a short, preliminary evaluation of the role of Portugal in the pre-nineteenth century history of West Central Africa. 2 9 Since this was written, much new work has been done on this area, notably by Joseph C. Miller of Wisconsin, Diane Christensen of Columbia, Benjamin Hanson of London, and others.

The Tokoist Church and Portuguese Colonialism in Angola chapter 2

Alfredo

Margarido

[The author notes the ambiguous nature of Tokoism as a black African religion portraying the white colonialists as evil, yet preaching a doctrine of passivity and submission to white authority while remaining apolitical. This socioreligious movement is viewed as professing puritanical values while creating a literate African leadership that may someday "abandon its passivity and join in open protest." Tokoism is viewed as an outgrowth of early protest to Portuguese occupation. The early messianic and syncretic movements provided a forum for often radical, far-reaching criticism against traditional institutions as well as for opposition to the contributions of the white rulers. Under Simon Kimbangu after 1921 the African prophetic movements grew rapidly. Most were controlled by the Portuguese authorities, including Tokoism which was able, however, to mobilize large masses of people. The movement's organization and ideology are examined sympathetically and in detail. The movement's religion is discovered to be related closely to politics. The rigid discipline of the movement's followers is associated with a social awareness, consciousness of alienation, and an awakening of strong resistance to exploitative working conditions. Thus ambiguity characterizes Tokoism: while the church preaches subordination to the Portuguese authorities, it also cultivates a spirit of protest and permits its followers to be aware of the reality of colonialism.] Since the 1870s, opposition to colonialism has taken two forms in Angola. The first was carefully planned in the cities by intellectuals who built around the idea of nationalism and supported the original Angolan cultural structures as they began to discover what constitutes the uniqueness of the color black and the African man. 1 The second is the story of the ethnic 1 The greatest figure of the period was the poet and linguist Joaquim Dias Cordeiro da Matta.

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Protest and Resistance in Angola

groups battling against colonial domination but with little or no unity among themselves. T h e former group gradually constructed a thesis on the peculiarities of the "Angolan nation," which are different from and opposed to Portuguese values; the latter groups continued to be active until 1918. T h e collapse of this last traditional movement of protest initiated a "Portuguese peace" which reigned over Angola until 1920 or 1922, when it was taken over b y government and military occupation. 2 N o t until 1940 did the intellectual opposition again protest colonial oppression and attempt to reunite the opposition of the people. F o r the first time the intellectual opposition studied fundamental structures before planning. T h e y attempted to organize both ideological support protesting colonialism and theoretical fundamentals for the mobilization of the proletariat. However, they committed a grave theoretical error (on the heels of errors by the Portuguese Communist party and the international Communist movement in general): they mobilized the proletariat and the industrial lumpen-proletariat in the cities and all but ignored the mobilization of the peasants.8 On February 4, 1961, militants of the Movimento Popular de Libertagáo de Angola ( M P L A ) attacked the prisons of Luanda to free the resisting Angolans held b y the Portuguese authorities. T h e attempt resulted in deaths on both sides. On the battleground the attack failed, but politically it put an end to all Portuguese attempts to justify colonial domination with its sugar-coated doctrines exalting "Lusotropicalism." Portuguese retaliation was brutal: hundreds of Africans were arrested—and some were executed on the spot. T h e colonials, however, still hoped that the traditional modus vivendi could be maintained. 4 Soon afterward, on March IS, the militants launched widespread terrorism. At first the colonists were shocked because they believed in the Portuguese colonial political philosophy, but soon they retaliated. One of the most disturbing questions arising out of the liberation strife, which has been reinforced b y systematic guerrilla activity, is that of finding out if the Tokoists, the faithful of the Ebundo dia Mfumueto Yeso 2 M. A. Moráis Martins, Contactos de cultura no Congo portugués (Lisbon, 1958), p. 1S6. 3 Ideological emulation led Africans of Portuguese persuasion to attempt solutions that have not been able to withstand the test of reality: "The workers of Portuguese African colonies constitute most of the revolutionary social class. The role of mobilizing and organizing the masses, and of directing the battle against colonialism, falls upon the proletariat" (Conference of Dar-es-Salaam, [Algiers: CONCP, 1967], p. 37). 4 "There is absolute calm throughout the land. The Cassange, district of Malange, incidents and even the February riots of Luanda are practically forgotten and do not shake the existing trust and optimism" (H. E. Felgas, Guerra ew Angola [Lisbon, 1962], p. 43).

The Tokoist Church

31

Clisto ( " T h e Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ") participated in the war or remained neutral. A former governor of the Congo district defined the position of the Tokoists as follows: " T h e collaboration of the Tokoists with the terrorist movement is very doubtful. T h e y do, however, admit that some dissident groups in the North are perhaps involved." 6 This position offsets that of the Angolan political leaders, which is different from the position of the Church (an institution opposed to all political involvement) and from that of the faithful, who do not hesitate to take part in the action. How can Tokoism be defined within the context of a prophetic movement? Is it simply a matter of sociopolitical elements opposing colonial power, or do religious aims take priority? Roger Bastide shows that one usually hesitates in judging movements caught between these two concepts: 1. The Justification—Messianism has been the only possible form of resistance in an agricultural society, and it has made the exploited aware of their exploiters. 2. The Condemnation—Messianism diverts the resistance of the exploited groups from material struggle to the field of religious myths. This has retarded the struggle between the classes and engulfed them in a morass of theology.9 According to Bastide, these concepts are not exactly contradictory but could be called complementary. H. Turner, however, sees these movements as being primarily religious and spiritual in nature, seeking only to obtain individual religious and spiritual autonomy. T h e y are a creative response to the perishing customs of the traditional African society. T h e new groups are formed to foster friendship, security, and some rules of practical orientation. B y the same token, says Turner, the movements of the independent churches may have the character of, or be identified with, movements of political and economic protest, the principal cause, however, being a religious one. 7 T h e explications of Bastide and Turner follow more or less the same lines, but they are neither analogous nor homologous. T h e y are even opposed, in the sense that in giving preference to socioeconomic data or religious significance, one is faced with movements that are almost in opposition to each other. T h e importance given by Turner to the religious element is essential in studying the messianic and prophetic movements of the Congo Basin, because its societies suffer from the influence of myths s Ibid., p. 47. 8 Roger Bastide, "Messianisme et développement économique et social," Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, XXXI (July-December 1961), 3-4. 1 H. Turner, "African Prophet Movements," Hibbert Journal, LXI, no. 242 (April 196Î), 112-116.

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Protest and Resistance in Angola

which explain the creation of the world and man, as well as the origin of power. Religious data must, therefore, be given careful consideration because all Congolese movements started with Ngunzist practices. If, however, the religious elements are vital to an understanding of the prophetic-messianic phenomenon, they are subject to the intervention of sociopolitical elements. The sociopolitical elements are often hidden under religious structures, but they are, nonetheless, responsible for the most important changes in Congolese societies. These societies have not retained the spiritual values of colonial religious organizations, but they have retained many material values and practices.8 The outcome is that traditional structures have not changed but have lost their original meaning; religious affirmations no longer refer to the same values. Turner's position must be tempered by this awareness: the religious elements, which remain fundamental, keep their form although in practice they change their content. In order to reconcile traditional religious practices with the necessities of a colonial society, African societies adopted the "principle of separation" which Roger Bastide studied in Brazil.9 This was an attempt to keep intact the traditional values of the African societies. Isolation was their answer to the threat of corruption. As the colonial order weighed more heavily upon them, however, the societies found it impossible to maintain their autonomy. The Portuguese used the kingdom of Kongo (as well as those of Ngola, Benguela, Cassange, and all the others) as supply houses for slaves. In doing so they altered the Kongolese monetary system and intro8 Morais Martins, op. cit., p. 78. 9 Bastide presents the principle of separation as an action permitting the African societies that have migrated to America to maintain their structure. Work regulations are set by the whites, but by attempting to survive in their new locale as they had existed in Africa, the exiled organizations are able to retain their homogeneity and their fundamental values. In Africa, this principle could be understood as separating the colonial order (and its economic, religious, and political manifestations) from the traditional African order. On a very general level we find the following variants: (1) the two communities only confront one another in the market placc, the principle of separation being implicitly accepted by both groups; (2) the Africans succumb to the pressure of the white society on the administrative level but refuse any intervention into African structures; (3) the African society adopts foreign religious and material elements but does not substantially modify its structures; (4) the African society accepts white values and proceeds to reorganize in order to integrate itself into the colonial system, its material structures being those of the white man; and (5) it would be almost impossible to find African societies based solely on Occidental elements; while adopting the white man's structures, the African society tempers them with its own values which guarantee the passage from one African structure to another. This process is dialectical and is aimed at opposing the power of the colonials. Tokoism may be classified in this last subcategory. It adopts the religious organization of the white men only in order to assure more adequately the continuity of the African values and to deepen the cleavage between the two communities.

The Tokoist Church

33

duced a considerable number of agricultural products which upset not only the systems of production but the patterns of diet and work as well. The resulting instability that was imposed upon the whole of the Angolan population required unique solutions. The principle of autonomy did not block all contact with the colonial invader, however, and religions were transformed in the process. The Kongolese sought an explanation for the unequal sharing of material benefits which characterized the colonial society. They did not find the answer in the real world, so they sought it elsewhere, in religion and myth. The principle of separation must acquire a heightened sensitivity if it is to resist adequately the pressures of technical innovations, and religion must be organized so as to reject the white man and allow the construction of an African society unable to feel the burden of the colonial order. Thus, the various material techniques brought by the white man prompted the Angolans to question their society and to search for an efficient and successful means of defense. It can, therefore, be seen that in examining Tokoism, a movement born in the Portuguese Congo, one must seek out the presence of religious elements that change radically only when sociopolitical structures are seriously threatened. Research oriented to defining religious changes will uncover social and political changes that have modified group relations. Colonial occupation, which disrupts family societies and clans, dissolves authority and demands the formation of organizations better adapted to circumstances. The Kongo are a matrilineal people, whose sociopolitical structure is segmented. The large political organizations are, therefore, always suffering from crises, because the action of the groups comes principally from the kanda ("clan") and the ngundi ("lineage"). There is no doubt that linguistic unity, as well as a considerable amount of cultural identity, exists among them. There are also idiosyncracies which form a network of oppositions hindering the organization of a homogenous central political power. As a result of its segmented nature, the Kongo society is subject to a permanent state of tension, explicit or implicit, which cannot be resolved by fluid institutions. One of the reasons Dona Beatrice's attempts to reunite the Kongo people in the eighteenth century failed was the impossibility of reinforcing the political power shared by several royal lineages. Membership in a clan or lineage, as well as all authority, derives from a mythical ancestor and an assemblage of fetishes which are the outward signs of the Kongo cosmogony. These are the myths that give value to the land—patrimony of the groups which cannot be taken away from them because it can never become the property of one person. The land is the pro-

34

Protest and Resistance in Angola

perty of the kanda, or better still, the property of the segmented groups, and not of their living members alone. Real possession cannot be disassociated from the ancestors who first occupied the land. The arrival of the white man disturbed all aspects of the Kongolese society as control of the slave trade gradually became more pressing. The loss in numbers to family-based social structures undermined the stability of a social organization whose economic, religious, and political independence had been total. The second attack on this traditional structure was launched when the clans and the lineage societies were forced to abandon the lands by which they were bound to their ancestors. This catastrophe could only be attributed to sorcery—the magic of the whites as compared to that of the Africans, which appeared to be stronger at the moment. The first messianic movement the Kongo experienced was composed of numerous syncretic elements: it utilized the strong central power of Catholicism to organize a Kongolese kingdom which would have a strong hierarchy. It started during the first years of the eighteenth century, following the displacement of the Kongolese political power after the War of Ambuilá (October 25, 1665), when King Antonio I was killed and beheaded by Portuguese troops. Dona Beatrice was a prophetess who tried to discover in the land of the Kongo places and symbols homologous to those of Christianity. She transformed the natural and cultural elements of the Kongo into Christian elements, for only Christianity could make possible the restoration of a united political power of which the Kongolese dreamed—a dream and myth that persists today in messianic and prophetic Kongolese movements. In 1872 a protest movement against Portuguese colonialism was launched under the so-called "Concelho" dos Dembos. It extended to the division of the Caxito and to the south of the river Dande; from Zenza do Golungo to the north of Bengo and to the seventh division of the Golungo Alto; to the tenth division of the Ambaca north of Zenza. It was a movement directed against the authorities placed there by the Portuguese, who were often colored people, ideal agents for enslaving and exploiting the African population. These authorities practiced injustices and used extortion in the collection of taxes.10 This attack on the Portuguese authorities was preceded by a movement that sought to convert traditional practices. Established for the mass destruction of fetishes, it remained known as Kyoka (from the word y oka, meaning "burn"). It clearly asserted that religious beliefs were incapable of supporting the group in its resistance to the Portuguese authorities whose demands oppressed the people. This assertion was made not lOJoáo d'Almeida, Operafóes militares nos Detnbos an 1907 (Lisbon, 1909), p. 102.

The Tokoist Church

35

with the idea of throwing out traditional doctrines, but with the intention of doing away with religious images, which did not have sufficient magic power to oppose the intervention of the whites.11 The movement was, nevertheless, exemplary. It gave proof of the tight association between a movement involving religious elements and the sociopolitical conditions imposed upon the people. The process of land spoliation began after the creation of the great administrative divisions and reached its peak after World War II. However, the pattern of opposition was already established, certainly by the turn of the twentieth century, and succeeding groups were to adhere to it. Having learned through experience, and deprived of the right to carry and purchase arms by the Portuguese, the people would not engage in armed riots until 1961, when the Portuguese lost control of nearly all the Portuguese Congo. The Portuguese used police raid tactics to subdue the people, and effective administrative occupation of the Congo began around 1887 with the creation of the Congo District on May 31 of that same year. It was not until 1892 that the occupation of Maqueta do Zombo began, under provincial decree No. 30 of January 30. In 1899 and 1900 the stations of Cuilo and Cuago were created. The region of Damba could not be occupied until 1911 (October 5), and from this center the occupation of Sosso and Pombo took place. The Bembe station was established in 1912 after the suppression of the insurrectional movements organized at the village level and even quite often by a lineage alone. Only in 1906 was a military colony organized under the command of Joao d'Almeida. It operated in the regions of Dembos during the year 1907. According to its commander, the colony was to: 1) Open the vast region along the rivers Zenza, Dande, Lifune, and Loge to commercial, agricultural, and mining use; 2) Study possible routes along which products from this region could be transported to other areas; 3) Punish severely all insubordinates and rebels against Portuguese authority; 4) Occupy this territory to assure the free circulation of goods without paying taxes and without being subject to the vexation of African authorities; 5) Have more effective authority over the Dembos and sobas ("rebel 1 1 Perhaps the full technique should be explained in relation to the religious and material makeup of those images; but it is sufficient to know that it is possible to create them from certain trees and the manipulation of clay from rivers or marshes, as well as by contact with other old figures, according to a system of reproduction almost biological. Among the Yaka this produces a veritable genealogy of "muquishe."

36

Protest and Resistance in Angola

chiefs") who would only give attention to their authority if paid. The story of the Portuguese military expedition is long and filled with details which give a clear picture of the desperate resistance of the people and the slow but inevitable disintegration of the army, constantly harassed by the population. No convincing victory seems to have been obtained. The army that returned to Luanda was a group in flight, for all seemed to conspire against the Portuguese: "fatigue, thirst, hunger, enemy fire and ambushes."12 It is therefore apparent that protest against the Portuguese occupation in this area did not cease. The action was carried out not in some homogenous manner but through combat of segmented units formed by the clans and members of the lineage. This meant that a decisive victory was never won by the Portuguese, and that they had to fight the same battle a thousand times. The lives of the people were much disturbed. On the one hand, the administrative order gave authority to strangers who had no connection with traditional authority, least of all with mythical ancestors. On the other hand, fiscal demands obliged them to abandon a familybased or lineage-based economy and to accept a market economy. And to all this difficulty was added the white colonist occupation of some of the lands. This series of movements stems from the same cultural traditions and from identical reactions to colonial occupation. They came to an end in 1918 with the overthrow of the last Mafulo movement. These movements combined two aims and two approaches. They provided a forum for oftenradical, far-reaching criticism against traditional institutions, and at the same time they opposed the contributions of the white people, which were beginning to multiply. And thus the destruction of religious images was brought about, as was the disappearance of elements introduced by the whites (hospitals, schools, dispensaries, homes, clothes—even culture, since this is related to transactions with white people.) The movements lost their continuity and their fervor when their methods were found to be incapable of conquering white magic, for myths formed a very intimate network with the manifestations of sorcery,13 which controlled the whole of Congolese society. At all levels was found the presence and the control of the kindoki ("sorcerer"). Doutreloux goes 12 Another characteristic to bear in mind regarding combats is the rapid mobilization of the people. Joao d'Almeida affirms that "the natives were always numerous" and did not leave the brush where they continued to fight "in unfair and cowardly fashion" (d'Almeida, op. cit., p. J8). 13 Sorcery mentioned here is not distinguished from "black magic" and sorcery per se, so often studied by specialists, which only confuses the characteristics of the phenomena and institutions.

The Tokoist Church

37

even further by stating that "society is sapped by sorcery." 14 It is perhaps inexact to admit that sorcery played only a minor role in influencing people; but it cannot be denied that, if it often provided a release for the community, 15 it was more of a castration process in that it created a climate of instability which suppressed the free action of the people by creating fixed, inviolable situations. It is certain that a duel between a fetish and a sorcerer will give rise to dynamic conflicts, which go around in a circle with no outlet guaranteed. The society imitates the dialectic process but it is not a true dialectic process in that it has no outcome and cannot guarantee the solution of conflict. The duel is only a sedative—not a cure—and tension begins again almost immediately and almost always at the same level. Thus there is a long chain of conflicts, one brought on by another, which do not reveal any positive elements. Ngunzism was established within this process as a positive element, a verbal response that inevitably led to action.16 Prophets engaged in dialogue in a complex society in which the process of segmentation rendered all social advances unstable, where ndoki ("sorcery") created considerable psychic instability. Thus the prophet, the ngunza, was often led to engage in a battle against all the elements of sorcery in order to end instability. Often the ngunza was a prophet who, unable to put an end to the practice of sorcery, would condemn a series of magic elements without condemning the principle behind these practices. He placed them in a different context, a useful context. 17 It was in March 1921, that prophetic practice received decisive encouragement. Simon Kimbangu stands out among all existing or preceding prophets, for he was the first person since Dona Beatrice to possess strong charismatic command over the people. They were mobilized with lightning speed, and the movement was implemented in a new way. Moral resurrection was the keyword: polygamy, religious dances, and alcohol were forbidden. A puritan program was set up to oppose white enterprise through a new rationalization of the Congolese societies. In addition, even if Simon Kimbangu never preached Congolese nationalism, members soon identified the new church with the ancient Kongo kingdom, the greatest myth in the history of the Bakongo population. 14 A. Doutreloux, "Prophetisme et culture," in African Syste?ns of Thought (London. 196J), pp. 214-239. 5 1 "Release" or subduing in the psychoanalytic sense of the word. 16 Bentley's definition cited by Andersson: "The ngunza is he who talks through the intermediary of a chief, a herald, a preacher, or a prophet." See Ephraim Andersson, Messianic Popular Movements in the Lower Congo (Stockholm: Almquist and W i k sells, 19J8). 1 ^ This explains that some techniques of sorcery may be used by the prophetic churches or by the messianic movements.

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Protest and Resistance in Angola

Other movements came to the former Belgian Congo and added to the strength of Kimbanguism. In 1926 André Matswa founded the "Friendship Society" in Paris; in 1936 the Salvation Army was established in the Congo; and in that same year Simon Mpaudi's Mission of the Blacks came into being. In Angola there were signs of prophetic movements in 1930 in the area of Teixeira de Sousa (Lunda). In 1934 a prophetess led the people in the region of the Pombo. In 1936 a Mayangi ("Joy") movement or Nlenvo ("Obedience to the Prophet") forbade all fraternizing with whites; in 1940 the Tawa movement (also known by the names of Tonsi, Tonse, or Ntonche) spread across the northern areas. Between 1950 and 1952 prophetic movements appeared in the east (Lunda). In 1953 "Lassysme" spread very rapidly among the peoples of Vili, a province in Cabinda. In 1955 the movement of the "Saints" spread throughout the central plateau of Angola (Nova Lisboa). But the results were not encouraging. Colonists and Portuguese authorities hindered the development of the movements, except when the original clan organizations sought support from secret societies, such as when "Lassysme" appeared. But Tokoism, the most important Angolan messianic movement since Dona Beatrice, continued to mobilize the people, despite Portuguese attempts to halt its development and keep it under rigid control. Tokoism is an Angolan movement, although it was conceived in a foreign land. Thus it was able to have a completely different approach from the one existing in Angola. When Simao Toko returned to Angola in 1950 with one hundred comrades, his church was still in an embryonic stage. Portuguese authorities had expected to see it dissolve under the violence of the control they imposed. This included the punishment by exile of Simao Toko as well as other very influential people. An examination of the conditions in which this church was founded, as well as a study of the biography of its founder and an analysis of the characteristics of the organization, will aid in better understanding the way in which this movement became an integral part of Angolan life. What part has it played in contesting traditional authorities and what has its position been in contesting the colonial authorities? The two activities are intimately related, and as Simao Toko points out, they often group both whites and the elders in the same camp. Both do nothing but exploit the young whom they see as tools for their own purposes. The white church which defends both is an institution that should be destroyed or avoided New institutions must be created to answer the needs of the Angolans. Simao Gongalves Toko was born in the village of Sadi Kiloango, in the circle of Maquela do Zombo that forms a frontier with the CongoKinshasa. His birthdate is not known. He began school in the Baptist Kibokolo Mission in 1926, at which time he could not have been more than

The Tokoist Church

39

eight years old. In 193 J, after having finished grammar school, he entered school in Luanda, where he completed two years of secondary studies. Very little is known about his qualifications as a student (rumored to be bad). In any event, he did not continue school but returned to his native village. In 1937 he was named to a temporary position as teacher at the Kibokolo Mission. Some time later he was promoted to a permanent position as a teachcr at the mission in Bembe. Nothing outstanding is known about him during these first years at Bembe, except that he was a young teacher working for a Protestant nonPortuguese mission. Probably about 1943 he became engaged to a young girl and found himself faced with the problem of a dowry. The elders had raised the amounts of dowries as a control over the young who would go off to work in the cities and earn enough money to threaten the domination of the elders over the traditional society. Toko requested an increase in salary, which was denied, and he decided to go to the Congo-Kinshasa to work for six months and save up for the dowry. Simao Toko went to Leopoldville, where he found work and decided to stay. At the same time, he broke his engagement to the young girl. In Leopoldville he belonged to the Baptist Mission, where he directed the Angolan choir. The anonymous correspondent who first presented the group to Jehovah's Witnesses18 furnished us with very important information: This first choir was probably formed by a dozen Angolans, which is The precise date of the formation of this small group from which was born the Tokoist church is not known. The anonymous correspondent of Jehovah's Witnesses (Year Book of 19SS, p. 249) gives the date as 1943. Silva Cunha, according to information given by Simao Toko, states that Toko went to Leopoldville in 1948 (see Silva Cunha, Aspectos dos movbnentos associativos na Africa Negra [Lisbon, 1958]. Neither one of these dates should be accepted as correct; however, the first seems more feasible, as the second telescopes Tokoist evolution as follows: Toko went to the Congo in 1948; a church was founded the following year; he was exiled in 1949 and returned to Angola in 1950. A slower pace for these events seems more realistic; this is suggested in the letters written to the Jehovah Witnesses in New York from Baia dos Tigres, by the dissidents of the church sent there by the government. For further details concerning the formation of the congregation at Leopoldville, the year books of the Witnesses give contradictory information. The Year Book of J9SS states that the head of the congregation wrote to New York about 1949 asking for literature. And he would have been sent the Watch Tower, Children, Joy of All People, and Be Glad, Ye Nations. However, the Year Book of 1956 (p. 262), based on the testimony of one of the members of the dissident community of Baia dos Tigres, states that Simao Toko found, in the room of one of the Baptist missionaries of the mission where he was a teacher, two small books in Portuguese, translations from The Kingdom of Hope of the World, that he stole them in order to translate them into Kikongo and circulate them despite the opposition of authorities and missionaries. These findings would have signified discovery of the truth for SimSo Toko. The contradiction between the two books is certainly evident; and if the Jehovah's Witnesses retained the second explanation they overestimated the role of miraculous change in setting Simao Toko on the road to truth. Let us above all, not attempt against all evidence to simplify Tokoism to a «elaboration of the Witnesses' doctrines.

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Protest and Resistance in Angola

would mean that its formation was well planned to lead to the creation of a new religion. Following the pattern of the first twelve apostles who surrounded Christ, Simao Toko assembled twelve Angolan prophets who would form the base of the new Angolan church. It was an organization of religious format masking an as yet crudely developed national conscience but searching for a way to assert itself. This activity came to have great importance, since Simao Toko is a Bakongo-speaking Kikongo and could very easily have joined one of the Bakongo groups or organizations which were scattered throughout Leopoldville, more or less tolerated by the Belgian authorities. Toko rejected not only the Bakongo political parties but also the Kibanguist church, where the greater part of the Congo basin population, especially the Bakongo, congregated. He considered himself first an Angolan and therefore had to create a very special kind of church which could not be confused with any of the existing African churches. This nationalist trait became stronger during the first period of the evangelization and was to serve as an element of cohesion when the group was run out of the former Belgian Congo and was forced to return to Angola. At this point an important event in the history of Tokoism occurred: While in exile both Simao Toko and his comrades became aware of the fact that Toko was a stranger in the midst of the complex Leopoldville society. First of all, he was a black man among the whites; and not only was he black, but he was an Angolan Bakongo—a member of a people not accepted by the Congolese Bakongo. And language posed a problem in that French, the second language of the Congolese Bakongo, is the third language of the Portuguese Bakongo. In the formation of the messianic movements there was the idea of migration toward the interior of the country. However, Tokoism was certainly the first movement where national character played a decisive role in the formation of a national church by one particular ethnic group which, in spite of the fact that its members had the same origins, the same family-based social structures, the same type of authority, and the same religious and mythical organizations, was definitely broken up by the political boundaries resulting from the Berlin Conference. It is true that, in matters of myth, differences of opinion arose, but the clans around which traditional structures were built were not questioned. Thus, the Tokoist church is a unique phenomenon in the sense that it is a Bakongo project of Angolan origin. The Bakongo give more importance to their Angolan identity than to the fact that they belong to the Bakongo. The Belgian authorities were very perceptive when they ordered the expulsion of the Angolans who formed this church, even if the reasons given for the expulsion were not true. On July 25, 1949, the second phase of the development of the church

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41

began. Toko was praying at the mission when he and his companions felt a draft. Some began to tremble and talk in foreign languages, quoting passages from the Bible, especially from Acts, chapters 2 ("The Coming of the Holy Spirit") and 4 ("Persecution of the Apostles"). Frightened, the twelve followers of Toko asked him the significance of what was happening. T o k o recommended that they read Joel 2:28: "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I shall pour out m y spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions." It is not impossible that these explanations were given later. Whatever the date, their intent was to establish a biblical basis for actions and events to take place and to predict what would happen to those who formed the church and the faithful ones who would follow them. T h e manifestation of the Holy Ghost assured the group of the Lord's favors (Acts, 2:4: "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance"). Secondly, the theme of persecution made them conscious of the suffering they would have to endure. From such suffering would stem positive results which would bring in more faithful to confirm the faith and develop the church. The missionaries who were dissatisfied with the activity of Simao T o k o feared that the new church would expand. After reproaching Toko, they expelled him from the mission. From then on meetings were held at the home of Simao Toko; it was here that the Holy Ghost manifested itself to the group a second time. T h e missionaries got wind of this new heresy and denounced Toko and his comrades to the Belgian colonial authorities, accusing them of political activities. This "catchall" accusation produced the desired results. On November 22, 1949, some months after the first "visit" of the Holy Ghost, the group was arrested. That the proselytic activity among the Angolans was fruitful is evidenced by the fact that 100 comrades were arrested with Simao Toko. 1 9 On December 8, 1949, a decree from the governor of the province of Leopoldville ordered that Simao Toko and his group be exiled. They were accused of practicing "the rites of a mystical-religious doctrine of hierarchic nature, which preached the arrival of a new order under the reign of a new Christ and would put an end to all present authorities and power. They would then take over and restore justice." T h e expulsion order was 19 There is a contradiction in these figures and those furnished to Jehovah's Witnesses by the informer from Baia dos Tigres, who mentions a group of 500 persons. It is quit* possible that both figures are correct: the 100 comrades represented the men closest to Toko; the others were followers not as yet compltely converted to the religious practice of Tokoism. But it does serve to indicate the rapid progress of a doctrine which continued to manifest itself in Angola.

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Protest and Resistance in Angola

quickly executed, and on January 10,1950, Simâo Toko and his group were delivered to the Portuguese authorities of Noqui at the border. The Angolans returned to their country but not to their homes. The Jehovah's Witnesses' Year Book of 1955 states that the Portuguese authorities did not permit the Tokoists to return to their homes. They were all sent to different places, since the authorities believed that the simple act of separation would put an end to the organization and would prevent the spreading of the doctrine among the Angolan population. Some were sent to Bembe, others to Luanda, and a small group was sent to the cocoa plantations of Sâo Tomé as indentured workers. The largest group was placed in the camps of Loge Valley, where they were kept isolated and not allowed to have contact with the population. Another large group was sent to the Baia dos Tigres, a small fishing port far to the south on the Angolan coast which was a real concentration camp where the authorities sent all the political undesirables and "antisocial" figures of all kinds.20 Simâo Toko found himself installed at Bembe, the village where he had once taught school. He lost no time in starting his conversion activity, which manifested itself against the interests of the colonists. He remained there two years. He was then sent to Caconda, where he also remained for two years before being transferred to Jau. T w o years later he was sent to Cassinga. Wherever he was, he continued his evangelist work, which disturbed the authorities and colonists. Finally, a clever civil servant found a good way to isolate Simâo Toko without having to imprison him. He was appointed lighthouse keeper at Pointe Albina in the area of Port Alexandre. Thus the government of Angola succeeded in isolating him almost completely from his church. Simâo Toko only came out of his seclusion to tell the faithful not to participate in the war of the national liberation and to beg those who had gone off to seek refuge in the frontier areas to return. It was his last public intervention in the life of the church. Today he lives in the Archipelago of the Açores, far from Angolan life. Once the difficulties of doctrine and organization were conquered, Tokoism spread like wildfire. First of all, the relationships with African religious systems had to be established. Simâo Toko found himself up against the immense prestige of the Kimbanguist Church, also a Bakongo church. He depended upon special Angolan Bakongo characteristics to found and develop his church. His exile made him conscious of the differences that prevented him from totally accepting the Kimbanguist Church, 20 At Baia dos Tigres the differences between Simâo Toko and Joâo Macoka became more intense and caused the establishment of a dissident group seeking protection from Jehovah's Witnesses—the protection rejected by Simâo Toko. It was from this dissident community that Jehovah's Witnesses received the information published in their year books.

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43

but the task of differentiation was certainly facilitated by the power of myth in Angola, as well as by the segmented nature of the Bakongo social organization. The church is organized around a central council which controls the congregations set up in each village in which there is a Tokoist community. Its members are the prophet (who gradually comes to be identified with Christ) and the apostles. These congregations are directed by teachers (or catechists) who are responsible for indoctrination, for leading ritual, and for discipline. Each congregation has a council consisting of the older members (and here again we find the concept of a gerontocracy, which confirms the existence of a conflict between generations within the Congolese society) who have the last word concerning discipline. This council differs from the traditional councils in that it allows women to take an active part. A number of symbols identify the church to the people and identify the members to each other—and distinguish members from nonbelievers or from those who have not been initiated. The main symbol is a white star with five or eight points on a red background. 21 Simao Toko rejected the cross, the one great symbol of Christianity, to adopt the star, which meant that Africa also had received enlightenment from God. According to a director of the Luanda congregation, it is the star mentioned in the Apocalypse 8:1 and following. T w o signs identified the Tokoists: the white star on red background (by this they were known as the movement of the red star); and the wearing of short hair parted in the middle by both men and women. The rules established by the church are both simple and practical and could be applied to all Angolan groups. Simplicity is an agent of proselytism, for rules established along its lines are general enough not to reject any particular group. Because of this Tokoism has been easily accepted, even though it leaves many problems bearing on traditional concepts unsolved.22 21 The two colors are found in the Congolese myths. The first (white) stands for water; the second (red) for earth and fire. On a more general level of symbolism, white also stands for authority, for it is worn by the administrative authorities, as well as by the missionaries. Red is the major symbol of religion, because it is worn by the hierarchy of the white religions. 22 Thus the people of south-central Angola who adhered to Tokoism were able to apply their own traditional concepts without departing from the general rules of the church. Among these concepts were: rejection of baptism (it is not practiced on the central coast of Angola); rejection of the color red, which traditionally appeared only in exterior symbols; and the practice of kttxingila, which Estermann describes as an "excitation of the spirit" (Carlos Estermann, " O tokoismo como fenomeno religioso," Garcia de Orta, XIII, no. 3 [1965], 327-342). There is no rule that bears upon the problems of dowry and circumcision. The church neither protests nor does anything about them.

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Protest and Resistance in Angola

The rules of behavior have to do with manner of dressing and personal hygiene, family life, and the relationship with authorities and superiors. Rules are categorized basically into rules for women and rules for men. Women must wear their hair short and parted in the middle; they are to wear no beads or ornaments and must cover their heads with a white or red scarf and wear white clothing. The men also must wear white clothing and part their hair in the middle. There is to be no polygamy. Before participating in any rituals of the cult, all are supposed to clean their mouths and bathe. They are to eat no pork and drink no alcohol. They are to attend services barefoot (this rule has not always been followed in the cities). There are two major rules relative to family organization: Tokoists are to take care of the women and children and send them to school so they may learn Portuguese. They must always show respect to authority in general and have an attitude of obedience toward them, and to try to do their duty to the best of their ability. These rules are to be found in the Bible, especially in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The rules are quite simple, and the organization itself is not too complex since it must quickly adapt to the needs of traditional societies which today are in a critical state. Thus the organization can be embraced by people both in the cities and in the villages. It is a church that finds its converts among people who have moved to the big cities, those who live in areas where they have salaried work. In fact, Tokoism finds the majority of its followers among displaced populations, or among those who have liberated themselves from traditional rules whether economic or political. Moreover, the greatest percentage of the followers is literate, which reinforces the unique character of this church. Guilt is rejected by the group. It is something that belongs to the whites and to the traditional authorities whose desire it was to subordinate the young people. The fusion of the two groups of elders and whites acts like a monolith to block the progression of the young inside both societies (white stands for the modern society; the old society is African). It forces the young people to reject all authority and create a new organization, even if it cannot materialize in the immediate present.23 The elders may have only a somewhat frazzled authority, but the whites have full sway of authority in Angola; it is the whites who are responsible for the unmentionable injustices that reign over all the nation of Angola. The complicity of the elders and the whites is manifest at the political level. People confronting the two types of existing authorities have concluded that the traditional authority has been left in place because it serves as an intermediary in the domination of the whites. The latter gain in two 2 3 A letter of 1956 from Simao Toko states that "the whites are like the old ones who cannot stand to see the young people with parted hair."

The Tokoist Church

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respects: they do not have to add to their administrative staff, and they acquire agents who have direct contact with the people. In this manner they reduce protests, since the people are not directly subject to orders from the whites. Orders come through the mediation of the elders who have entered into a pact with the whites. A certain amount of liberty is allowed to the agents and the trap is set: they can send anyone away under contract labor. Thus, each chief or agent has a coercive hold over a particular group in the interior without diminishing the number of laborers available. However, when the group is forced to leave the interior and install itself in the city, because of fiscal pressures on the men, the people then realize the complicity of the traditional leaders. Colonial exploitation is no longer disguised, and both the workers under contract and those who choose freely to work in the cities feel white domination directly. Labor regulations place all Angolans under the pressures of the whites; no one can escape them. All physically fit natives who cannot prove that they are earning their own living are forced to work. This category includes: 1) Those who cannot pay taxes due to the government; 2) Those who seem to be incapable of finding the means of feeding, clothing, and providing shelter for themselves and their families; and 3) Those who live in unhealthy conditions. The blatant impreciseness of the regulations exposes all Angolans to the threat of compulsory work contracts in agricultural or mining enterprises or for the government. T o escape long-term labor contracts, the people must either seek work voluntarily in agriculture or with some merchant or any white, go to the big cities, or leave the country. The solution of voluntary work, as well as migration to the big cities, leaves the worker with an extremely low salary at the mercy of the Portuguese labor system. It is possible to find better working conditions in neighboring countries, especially in the former Belgian Congo. The preferred alternative is to secure work in large foreign cities. It is in the ex-Belgian Congo that sizable Angolan colonies have been organized, and these have played an important role in elaborating Angolan politics.24 The demand for laborers increased as the lands of the Congo were progressively taken away from the people in order to set up coffee plantations, under a capitalistic system which served to reinforce the colonial economy. When the new king of the Congo was elected in the mid-fifties, there arose a controversy between the Protestants residing in the ex-Belgian Congo and the Catholics. There was already open opposition between the Congolese and the Portuguese, the former supported a Protestant and the latter imposed a Catholic king, King Dom Antonio III, who died in 1957.

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Protest and Resistance in Angola

The colonial economy was dependent for many years upon the diamond mines in Luanda. The rapid soaring of Angolan economy after World War II increased the need for labor; and the traditional African power structure, which survived up to then relatively untouched by the white occupation, was upset and its rate of disintegration increased. The rich lands of the Congo and the Malange districts were disputed by the colonists, and resistance to the massive occupation by large numbers of farmers and merchants was weak. A document from King Antonio III attests to his anxiety regarding these exacting circumstances and sensitizes the resistance movements which sprung up among the people as a result of the occupation by the whites of the fertile lands.25 At the same time the farmers who continued to work their lands were subjected to the demands of the market which was entirely controlled by the Europeans. This is another form of oppression which uses any means, from faulty sales to illegal tricks, to dispossess the farmer of his land.86 The difference between international prices and those in the Congo is often enormous. Local prices are entirely subject to the practices of the white merchants, who do not hesitate to abandon current prices often stemming from agreements set up between interested business groups. Groups of businessmen travel through the villages to buy coffee on the spot at prices lower than those in the big commercial centers. When the African farmers refuse to sell their coffee to them, they often burn the villages, forcing the people into the bush; the buying price for the coffee is then very low. This situation is what brought about the messianic and prophetic Congolese movements, and it is in this region that the armed protest against colonialism was launched. A critical situation has evolved, brought about by the creation of a massive proletarian population and the loss of lands traditionally belonging to the people, their link to the traditional religions. Emigration appears to be the only solution to colonial oppression. This situation is a very propitious one for the appearance of religious solutions. Religions provide a way out, for they allow a glimpse of a distant solution although they hesitate to incite the people to participate in activities of which the outcome is doubtful. In this context, the Tokoist emphasis on obedience to all authority is 25 A bulletin from this king, dated January 2, 1956, advised the Congolese that they ran the risk of losing their lands if they did not cultivate them at all times; the whites might consider them abandoned and occupy them. See Felgas, op. cit., p. 107. 2 9 The coffee was weighed in the stores and a very low price was offered for it. It was known that the price would be refused. The African farmer would then walk away, but several handfuls of coffee would be taken away from the bulk—and then on and on until the final sale.

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47

comprehensible; authority is the hypostasis of the white man. The duality of the situation is evident, for white authority is the source of all suffering in African societies. In accusing the evil brought on by the whites, Tokoism only strengthens the potentiality for good with which the Africans are endowed but which they cannot exploit because of white domination. If society functions badly, it is not because it is congenitally bad, but because the whites have imposed foreign regulations upon it. Thus they have become accomplices in the destruction of African societies. It must be recognized, however, that white society has organizational qualities that enable it to dominate. T h e church must therefore have a dual function. It must not only find its Angolan identity, but also seek to appropriate the logic and organizational ability of the whites. When the Angolan political leaders tried to contact the Tokoists upon their forced return to Angola, they thought they would find an efficient organization which could give them the pattern for the opposition against Portuguese authorities. They found a group which would not discuss political issues, but which gave recognition to the logic of white behavior and based its movements on this knowledge. As the political leaders soon discovered, the Tokoists saw the situation strictly as one in which two possible types of action were opposed. One of those forces momentarily had more power than the other. This power must be overthrown in order to obtain for the Angolans their rightful position in Africa. 27 Tokoists certainly do not dare oppose the white man politically, because they are aware of the strength of the whites in this respect and the weakness of their own position. Recognition of this African weakness, however, as well as of African behavior, does not prevent their becoming aware of the situation and studying it to discover the solution. The whites are evil—their contributions may be worthwhile, but they demand submission which crushes the Africans. The whites may set up efficient patterns for technical matters and may have a rational form of organization, but they are an established evil which must be destroyed. Their contributions must be appropriated, not blindly imitated. This dictum explains what is apparently a contradictory attitude on the part of the Tokoists, that is, acceptance of white patterns but rejection of all unnecessary contact with them, acceptance of their technical contribu27 Viriato da Cruz, of the MPLA, who had been responsible for contacting the Tokoists at that period, defined the Tokoist opinion for me, that is, the religious influence of the whites sought to destroy the personality of the blacks. Therefore, they had to be fought with an African Africa, with a church that was black, African, and Angolan. The white man is always guided by good sense, while the African seeks irrational explanations; that is, the white profits by the opportunities life gives him. Viriato believes that the Tokoists only mimicked the whites and remained complete slaves of the white cultural system.

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Protest and Resistance in Angola

tion but rejection of their "human" contribution. T h e whites are technicians and engineers, and in this domain they can be accepted. But as administrators, as bosses, as police, as foremen they constitute an alien force which threatens the stability of the groups and could bring total destruction to them. T o flee the white man is to flee evil and to return to the basic goodness of the Africans. Thus Tokoism does not encourage antifetish or antisorcery activities. Intellectual belief in the traditions of their groups enable Tokoists to go directly to the core of the main problem: adapting the logic of the white industrial society to the African tradition. This is a dialectic movement which requires a thorough comprehension of the social order because the whites must be opposed through possibilities within African societies. T h e whites set up revenue regulations, police regulations, work systems, and laws for everything. T h e Tokoist church believes that Angola is divided into two parts: the profane part which belongs entirely to the whites; and the religious part which is wholly African and which enables them to envisage a new organization to counter the action of the colonists. T h e regulations imposed upon the faithful make this reasoning logical, that is, the Tokoist must always obey the white authorities. In this manner, Tokoists keep white authority out of their church. B y satisfying all the legal demands of the whites, b y paying their taxes, by seeking work, by maintaining good relations with the administration, the Tokoists safeguard themselves against repression and thus guarantee independence for their church in its relationships with the colonial society. This manner of comprehending social factors led the Tokoists to draw two conclusions: first, that one must work in the society of the whites and find trades which might guarantee them independence (businessmen, artisans, etc.) or find trades among those which the Africans may practice, such as would give them a high social status and high salaries. At the same time, one must accept without protest all regulations of the activity, for only in this manner will he be able to find work easily. And, in effect, it is the Tokoists, or rather the faithful of the church of the Red Star, (the m'paps)—the people with the hair parted in the middle—who are preferred by the whites, since they are considered as very good workers, well disciplined and capable. 28 How does this attitude affect comprehension of the Angolan political situation, and what contributions does Tokoism make to movements of 2 8 In protesting the attitude of white employers, a Portuguese missionary denounced the difference between the treatment given to Tokoists and that given to Catholics: "I know that in a native colony [Caconda] hundreds of Tokoists are coddled, while the few who have remained faithful to Christianity are despised" (F. Valente, "Confianja e interrogagao," Portugal em Africa, 2d set. XXI, no. 125 [September-October 1964], 262-274). Despite the exaggerations of the Portuguese missionaries, this information confirms the success of the Tokoist church in mobilizing the people.

The Tokoist Church

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colonial opposition? First of all, Tokoism rejects all political activity, because this field belongs entirely to the whites. Tokoism could then, according to the dichotomy defined by Roger Bastide, take its place among the "demobilization" movements because, by refusing to consider political questions, it invites the faithful not to concern themselves with the particular political situation in Angola. Actually, one of the rules of Tokoism is the total separation from civic activities (in the Hegelian sense of the word) and abstention from all political activity or all forms of social demands (such as belonging to a trade union, for example). This rule causes considerable ambiguity, for no Angolan can consider himself as separated from the political affairs that control all facets of life. If the Tokoists reject voluntarily all political demands, they cannot escape the demands imposed by the laws of the whites which control the work system and revenue regulations. Thus, it is a fallacy to sever Tokoism from any kind of political action, for politics reign everywhere. To be sure, Tokoist regulations are extremely severe. They claim above all to avoid a confrontation between the two worlds, which are on a parallel plane but entirely independent of each other, and thus in opposition. The world of the Africans is that of religion, and the world of the whites is one of politics. The Portuguese believed in this total separation of the two worlds for a long while because they felt that the Tokoist's own regulations limited their followers and that they could be trusted to operate freely. But soon the Portuguese realized that the instructions of the church could not isolate followers from the realities of a biracial society, where the Africans are always at a disadvantage. This problem was common to all Africans, Tokoists or non-Tokoists. It led the Portuguese to class all Africans in the same category and by extension to mistrust the Tokoists. There are therefore two ways of looking at the Tokoist activity as related to Angolan nationalism: as a national church wishing to have nothing to do either with society as a civic body or with politics; and as an organization capable of mobilizing the Africans and making them conscious of their alienation. The Tokoist church must be analyzed on the basis of this dualism. It has never escaped this ambiguous but inevitable position. Mario de Andrade has skillfully singled out the fundamental role played by the social awareness which gradually seizes all Tokoists: "Unlike Kimbanguism, which found its largest audience among the detribalized peasants of the Congo, Tokoism provoked the awaking of a strong resistance to the system of forced labor among workers in the plantations of Angola." Andrade confirms this by quoting from documents of the white colonists: "Witness the circular that 24 'representatives of the economy' from the Uige district (Carmona) addressed to the governor-general of the colony on March 7,

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1957, informing him of the influence of Simao Toko's disciples and complaining that they had found among the people systematic refusal to register 'voluntarily' for work in the plantations." 29 This is one of the greatest ambiguities of Tokoism, for in preaching subordination to the authorities, by accepting the work regulations imposed by the colonists, and by meeting all fiscal demands of Portuguese authorities, the Tokoists managed to find the strength to demand that the Portuguese administrators adhere strictly to rules established by colonialism itself. Thus it is that a number of those whom the Portuguese call the advogados de senzala ("village lawyers") are recruited among protestant laymen or among Tokoists who then leave the church so that they may be free to practice law. Tokoism is a school of apprenticeship, and if its Ghandian peaceful resistance, as Viriato da Cruz remarked, 30 is part of a system set up to hinder the intervention of the colonial political machine into the life of the church, the teachings often force the faithful to leave the church to look elsewhere for groups and movements whose action is more immediate and more radical. T h e great interest of Portuguese authorities in controlling the movement is understandable. Simao Toko was freed from his forced residence at Pointe Albina, but after a brief appearance to tell the faithful not to participate in the war against the Portuguese, he was exiled to the Azores where, although he enjoys great freedom of movement, he is completely isolated from his church as well as from Angolan life. In the same way the Portuguese government has stopped the most important Tokoist leaders from intervening in Angolan affairs by setting them up as small property owners on the farm of Sao Nicolau (near Mogamedes). Going a step further, the Portuguese authorities granted freedom of religious activity to the Tokoists whose churches were located in the center of the suburbs in Luanda and elsewhere. Also, the Information and Tourist Center of Angola (CITA) commenced to print books and other publications to be sent to the Tokoist church. These concessions have their compensations in that the leaders of the church only admit members who swear they will not participate in any freedom party or participate directly or indirectly in protest organizations. T h e Portuguese government counts on the magnetism of Tokoism to hinder, even prevent, the mobilization of the people which continues to occur through the Uniao das PopuIagoes de Angola (UPA) and the MPLA. 31 29 Mario de Andrade, "Agonie de Pempire et crise du nationalisme," Rernarques Congolaises, XIV (July 17, 1964), 328. 30 This remark has not yet been investigated in detail but must be taken into consideration, since the passive resistance of Ghandi determined the change in English colonial policies in India. 31 Information from Joaquim de Castro Lopo suggests that Simao Toko, although

The Tokoist Church

51

This does not stop Tokoists from playing an important role in throwing the proper light on colonialism for its followers and the population in general. Their motivations and rules of conduct compel them to do so. Tokoism is forced to analyze the political orientation of the white society in order to know what separates the profane (politics) from the religious. For this reason the split between the white society and African society which becomes crystallized in the Tokoist church neither disguises nor clarifies problems because misinformation and ignorance create situations the church cannot disregard. If Tokoism is to be classified among the movements of demobilization—movements that seek to escape into a more promising future—it cannot escape the practical reality that confronts all of its followers. Isolation of the church is ideal, never real. W e must therefore accept the insidious penetration of the world of reality into the "isolated" life of congregations. Portuguese authorities would have to study the position of each member in order to determine the attitude of the church in relation to the movement of liberation. As a worker, a taxpayer, an inhabitant of a city or village, a draftee, or a church member, the Tokoist cannot avoid being identified with the African groups who are subject to the oppression of colonialism. He cannot forget the dead, nor can he ignore the combats that continue to ravage the areas in northern Angola, where the Bakongo continue to fight colonialism and to die. The isolation of the church from white society can never be absolute; therefore, separation from civic life, such as Tokoism dictates, is absolutely impossible. Tokoism is forced to participate in the development of an Angolan national conscience for two reasons. The first involves those who have become aware of colonial practices but who limit themselves to legal forms of protest—which nevertheless can go very far (refusing to work voluntarily, refusing working conditions in certain activities, sending letters of complaint to provincial and international authorities protesting abuses, etc.). This legal form of protest, in which Tokoists are joined by former Protestants, offers a real means of control over the activities of the colonists and administrators and can take on the appearance of a vast operation to disrupt the rural superstructures. This kind of activity is especially effective in the bush but occurs less often in urban areas, for the complexity of the situation renders strict Tokoist control there impossible. The second kind of Tokoist participation must be nuanced. It is "Tokoist" only in that it assembles all those who were once connected with the church, making loud declarations against the movements of liberation, takes no definite stand on the side of the Portuguese, and tries to secure political advantage from a situation that is quite ambiguous. This information seems to confirm the exile to which the church leader was condemned.

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where they learned the realities of colonialism and the practices it engenders. These people could not find in religious activity a valid means of protest. These are the future members of the resistance movements. It can be ascertained that since 1961 nationalist movements recruited numerous militants from among former Tokoists. 32 Control of the church has become more or less impossible, despite the attempts of the Portuguese authorities. David Barrett states that after the beginning of the war of the liberation, "the movement developed more rapidly during the revolt of 1961 because of the uncontrolled moving about of the population, which made a strict control impossible." 83 It is Barrett again who states that the movement was comprised of 10,000 followers in 1963.34 This figure has never been verified and therefore can only act as a rough estimate, but it does indicate that the group continues to be active. This mobilization must, however, be considered from two angles: the church functions as a shelter, protecting its members from the combat, and the church takes in the victims of the situation of anomie brought about by the war, who become involved in politics when they become conscious of the real situation created by colonialism. Ambiguity is the keynote of Tokoism, an ambiguity which nonetheless contains positive elements. Amid the perturbations created when the colonial order is questioned, the church seems to possess all the elements necessary for taking a firmer and more open stand against white occupation. The official position of the church alienates it from the support of the most dynamic elements among the population. They cannot stand by any longer and refuse to admit the impossibility of coming to terms with colonialism and turn toward organizations having more radical aims. The church does, however, continue to play an important role, in that it cultivates an implicit spirit of protest. This permits its followers to be aware of the reality of colonialism and often leads them to increase their efforts of opposition. The fact that the government exiled Simáo Toko in the Archipelago of the Aqores (which had already been the land of exile of the notorious comrades of the great Mo$ambican chief, Gungunyana) shows how fearful the Portuguese are of the mobilizing power of the church. This fact also explains why the Portuguese endeavor to keep the movement in hand. The ambiguity of the followers of the red star may some day allow them to abandon their passivity and align themselves with movements of open protest. 32 Information given by Viriato da Cruz and confirmed some years later by Joaquim de Castro Lopo. 33 David B. Barrett, "Schism and Renewal in Africa," manuscript, p. 89.

84 Ibid., p. J78.

A Failure of Hope: Education and Changing Opportunities in Angola Under the Portuguese Republic chapter 3

Michael A. Samuels [This case study examines an early twentieth-century protest movement in Angola led by Antonio Joaquim de Miranda, who attempted to bring about educational reforms for Africans but failed. Primary focus is on protest manifested through a voluntary association, with the central issue being whether education would lead to "civilization" and social reform for the Angolan. Special attention is directed to Miranda, an educated African of antimonarchical and antielitist sentiments, who demanded local autonomy from Portugal and greater educational opportunities. His failure is attributed to a hardening of Portuguese attitudes under the Republic, and to policies limiting opportunities for nativeborn Angolans—a pattern that has prevailed into the 1970s.] INTRODUCTION1 The history of Portuguese expansion and contact with foreign peoples, especially in Africa, reveals one constant theme: the importance of equality for non-European peoples. An understanding of this theme is confused by recurring emphases on extremes: either the Portuguese accepted non1

This study was made possible bv a grant from the Institute for International Studies and the Center for Education in Africa of Teachers College, Columbia University. Education in this period is thoroughly examined in Michael A. Samuels, Education in Angola, W8-1914: A History of Culture Transfer and Administration (New York: Teachers College Press, 1970).

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Europeans fully, as "assimilated," or they were ruthless in their exclusion of anything that stood as a barrier to their desires. This paper shows an important vignette in Angolan history by highlighting a change in the position of African equality. Soon after the advent of the Portuguese Republic in 1910, previously existing opportunities for equality were curtailed as a result of three different developments: 1) a growing emphasis on "protecting" Africans rather than "civilizing" them; 2) increased educational requirements for previously available administrative employment; and 3) a growing emphasis on vocational education and labor, and a refusal to provide secondary-level instruction in Angola. These developments had historical roots in the earlier Monarchy, in the colonial thinking that began to develop in the late nineteenth century, when a hardened view toward Africans and their place in colonial society evolved. As awareness of the hardening spread among Angolans, the form of protest against Portuguese rule changed. Journalistic argumentation 2 and peaceful demonstrations replaced traditional resistance through armed rebellion. In Luanda, March 12,1911, hundreds of people, peacefully acting as petitioners to the government, marched directly to the residence of Governer-General Manuel Maria Coelho.3 What was unusual about the group was that all of the marchers were Africans. This was the first time that Africans had peacefully demonstrated to elicit reforms from the provincial government. Though spurred by a growing sense of unequal treatment and lack of opportunity, the participants marched with hope in their hearts. The hope was stirred by the advent of the Republic and faith in Portuguese good will. The result of the protest is the subject of this paper. T H E LEADER A N D T H E ISSUE Ant6nio Joaquim de Miranda was born in 1864. Nothing is known of his life before he was sixteen, when his father died. At that time, Miranda came under the care of Nicolau Rogeiro, who had been considered the best African primary school teacher of the time, a person who, educated completely within Angola, influenced "through good example and patriotism" many Africans who later had careers in commerce, the military, and public life.4 Rogeiro may have influenced young Antonio in this way. By the time 2

Douglas L. Wheeler, "Nineteenth Century African Protest in Angola," African Historical Studies, I, no. 1 (1968), 40. 3 The exact size of the group is unclear. Estimates range from "few in number" (A Voz de Angola [Luanda], March 23, 1911) to "2,000 natives" (O Eco